{"data":{"id":19283,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: April 2023","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/19283-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-April-2023","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19283","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19283","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\nApril 2023\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 05:03:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to April\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including vehicle movement, head assets, and enemy gangs.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nIn April, the AI Content team continued to refine behaviors, improve animations, and develop new features. This involved further work on the sleep and bed-relaxation behaviors, which received improved animations. They also polished the various leisure animations that allow characters to watch TV and use the mobiGlas on bunk beds.\n\nA basic security guard was implemented to patrol the Stanton and Shubin Station, which will be iterated on over the coming month. This was also updated to rotate between the tinker bench and firing range for a more realistic flow.\n\nFor the deck crew, AI Content upgraded the diagnostic cart, allowing AI to push it like a trolley around a Gladius and interact with the console at various points. They also added new \u2018scooch\u2019 animations and created blockout animations for the personnel carrier, including enter and exit animations for the driver, copilot, and backseats.\n\nDevelopment of the fight club and character locomotion continued, with various animation improvements being introduced. For example, the team polished the bouncer animations for the club entrance and improved AI animations for characters in severe pain. Additionally, they set up a new locomotion set for the \u2018junkie\u2019 and \u2018tired\u2019 characters, which adds variety and visual interest.\n\nVarious AI blockout animations for janitorial tasks were created, such as placing and using the bucket and mop. AI Content also made significant progress on the janitor's workflow, with Design and Animation working closely together.\n\nAI Content added variation to the trolley artwork, moving away from the whitebox version. Further expansion was planned too. They\u2019re currently looking to prevent trolley \u2018popping\u2019 and improve box placement in the hangar for a more-realistic and less-robotic feel.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, AI Features progressed with characters using sniper rifles, creating a prototype behavior that allows them to fire from low cover. This uses a new overwatch trait and behavior flow.\n\nThey also continued to work on the melee combat behavior for a specific encounter, including synchronized attacks between the player and enemy. This utilizes locomotion that allows the enemy to close in on the player and duck and dive around them when getting ready to attack.\n\nAI Features also continued to support weapon usage from \u2018transporter entities,\u2019 which refers to anything an NPC can ride. AI social work progressed too, with the team creating a four-legged creature that players can pet.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech progressed with navigation and movement system features.\n\nThey also completed tasks for the navigation-cost-area modifier, which will mark specific areas and increase or decrease the cost of paths that go through them; this will influence which paths NPCs or ground vehicles choose. Alongside polishing and providing feedback on the feature, a way for entity tags to influence cost area was implemented.\n\nFor example, a location with fire will have a high cost for normal NPCs to ensure they avoid it. However, the same area will have a lower cost for NPCs wearing fire protection.\n\nWork also began on ground-vehicle collision avoidance, which involved updating the system to support both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-NPC avoidance. This required unifying how agents are separated. Previously, they were separated by agent type (medium characters, large vehicles, etc.). Now, all agent types with different avoidance radiuses and rules are processed together providing they\u2019re in the same navigation volume.\n\nAI Tech updated behavior and tactical-point-system requests relating to transit. They also cleaned up and optimized transit in the movement system, which involved updating the pause-movement functionality logic used when running navigation-link logic. Now, it will only pause the movement request at that moment, and all follow requests will be processed.\n\nOn the AI Tools side, improvements and optimizations were made to the usable coordinator. The team also extended the debug AI tools, most notably adding a visualizer for testing tactical-point-system requests.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nThe Vehicle Feature team completed the new fighter-combat AI-flow design and can now play against NPCs with a reasonable variety of behaviors. They recently moved onto testing and tweaking, though they\u2019ll continue to further modify behaviors based on various character traits. For example, making them more aggressive or cautious, which results in visible differences in NPC behavior. This will be the AI Vehicle Feature\u2019s focus over the coming months.\n\nTime was also spent improving ship-spline following. This involved implementing new algorithms for calculating a ship\u2019s speed along a spline to prevent it from flying off. They also began experimenting with the procedurally generated splines feature, which enables ships to fly around reasonably detailed geometry without colliding with anything. This will be useful for various features, including the ship-recall feature mentioned in last month\u2019s report.\n\nAnimation\nLast month, the Animation team worked on the spec ops and Screaming Galsons NPCs, Vanduul melee combat, and civilian walk animations. They also created blockouts for blanket use in beds, the janitor, and carrier personnel.\n\nThen, animations were added for a new creature, the AI searching behavior, weapon customization, the player chow line, players using locker doors, and more.\n\nA mo-cap session was held to capture assets needed for the coming month. Two further sessions were also planned - one with a single actor and one with two to capture various combat data.\n\nOn the facial side, the team processed a large number of selects for episode one, quality-controlling the captured data so the rest of the team can start working on it.\n\nEngine\nLast month, the Core Engine team ironed out tech developed over the last few months, readying it to be integrated into the main development stream. This includes testing the new P4K format, which will speed up the game\u2019s startup. When QA is finished, the Engine team will begin integrating it into the main development stream and enable it for all other departments.\n\nThe new internal code-build system, StarBuild, is in the final stages of having Linux compilation enabled. Afterward, the team will start to roll this out internally.\n\nFor memory management, the Engine team are continuing to develop an internal tool to better analyze memory usage (and later reduce the memory usage of the game).\n\nFor the Gen12 renderer, the team ported the last remaining legacy rendering passes to the new API. They also began deleting the no-longer-needed legacy code.\n\nImprovements to the streaming systems began. First, the team simplified logic to update the per-instance streaming data, which will leave less code to maintain. Additionally, they began moving more streaming logic away from the main thread to background workers; this affects the frame time less and streams objects much faster.\n\nWork was also done on the generic shape system, with the current focus on the editor to allow the designers to set up multiple sub-segments. To improve entity areas, significant code work was done to ensure consistent and non-duplicate enter\/leave events are sent in all cases.\n\nThe entity lifetime system was also updated to allow the designers to specify areas with different rules. For example, adding aggressive cleanup to areas where gameplay is important, like hangers. Various bug fixes and optimizations were completed too.\n\nThe Physics team added winch support to the rope system, which allows them to switch between fixed and pulley attachments.\n\nGeometry parts are now assigned a unique ID to enable them to be queried by name. As a side effect, this puts more requirements on debug names, which will make them more expressive and globally unique. Additionally, the individual physical collision of geometry parts can now be disabled.\n\nImprovements were also made to physically based wheeled vehicles on how they handle contact with hard surfaces. A new specialized AABB tree was introduced for use with signed distance fields, which favors a fast tree generating speed at the cost of slower culling code.\n\nLastly, various bug fixes and optimizations were done.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nLast month, the Gameplay Features team continued working on new mobiGlas apps, including the ship-status home-screen widget, notifications, and collectible screens.\n\nThey also revisited the character customizer to add the next layers of functionality, including face sculpting, and implemented usability feedback.\n\nFurther optimization work was completed. For example, a ship\u2019s crew can now snap to a new schedule with minimal reloading when players come back from a mission or time has passed via sleep. TrackView received improved playback threads both in-client and in the editor tool too.\n\nA new way to animate light volumes was added. Now, the team can turn groups of lights on or off using planar, radial, or random sequences.\n\nObjective markers were also added to the Starmap so that they\u2019re always clamped and visible, even when off-screen or merging with another entity.\n\nThe drone\/vehicle remote-control interface was further iterated on too.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, the Vehicle Features team progressed with various UI features. As part of this, the multi-function-display (MFD) system now supports comms calls, which was completed for the wider company to use when playing the game. This involved completing the aspects needed to play through the game with the new MFDs, fixing notable bugs, and creating documentation to help testers.\n\n\u201cThis is just about complete now, so we\u2019ll move onto implementing more MFD views, such as the scanning\/radar screen and IFCS ship system screen.\u201d Vehicle Features Team\n\nThe new vehicle heads-up display (HUD) is nearing completion. Further iteration is underway on the visual layout, though it\u2019s largely functional and widely in use. This work also extended to the turret UI, which received new visuals and functionality to improve the overall experience.\n\nVehicle UI then supported the development of in-game markers. These tasks include adding radar-contact markers to vehicles, mission objectives, and quantum destinations. As this encompasses several different systems, the main goal is to ensure the intended flow through the game\u2019s levels is clearly communicated.\n\nAway from UI, Vehicle Features finished the wingman commands mentioned in last month\u2019s report. This led to various design changes, including the addition of commands to help players manage their wingmen correctly. They also implemented AI tasking to enable the wingmen to follow directions. Supporting character dialogue is currently underway.\n\nControl surfaces were further developed last month, specifically autopilot. This required a custom autopilot setup that behaves differently to thruster flight, as control surfaces are highly dynamic and the new flight model varies greatly depending on atmospheric conditions. This new control mechanism flies the ship in a similar way to real-life fly-by-wire systems. Last month, it was heavily tested and is currently nearing completion.\n\nGameplay Story\nFollowing on from last month, Gameplay Story began April creating another series of animations for the Gladius deck crew. For this, they reused various assets from the first series and adjusted skeleton animations and distances.\n\nAfter this, they progressed with minor updates across a wide range of scenes, including updating 20 scenes with either new poses, prop updates, start\/end times, or general polish and maintenance.\n\n\u201cAll of this was a considerable body of work and it felt great to accomplish so many updates.\u201d Gameplay Story\n\nA new scene was also implemented into chapter four, and significant updates were made to several scenes using new motion capture.\n\nFinally, Gameplay Story began discussing scenes in chapter 19 that had not previously received much attention.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nLast month, the Graphics team worked towards enhancing the game\u2019s realism, functionality, and developer workflow with a range of long-awaited features and upgrades. For example, streaming locally compiled skinned meshes is now possible, which provides much quicker loading and replication of the release build. The editor also received a new HUD feature that indicates when resources are being compiled.\n\nWater volume finetuning began for use on planets, specifically with atmospheric and fog volumes. These integrations are part of the Q2 water deliverables, which include water ripple simulations for all bodies of water (even down to puddles).\n\nA series of performance and compatibility improvements were made to the core renderer. This included the removal of some legacy CPU-to-GPU buffer management synchronization, which could cause hangs in Nvidia drivers.\n\nThe team also began moving volumetric fog and gas clouds to Vulkan. They\u2019re currently looking to enable the feature following essential compatibility, functionality, and visual quality-control fixes.\n\nThe UI Tech and Graphics teams made considerable progress on the interior map. Last month, the map\u2019s core visual features were completed, with the current focus on performance improvements and polycount optimization. A temporal super-resolution prototype was integrated too, paving the way for improved resolution and clarity across the wider game.\n\nFor the ongoing development of fire tech, a new shared resource manager now efficiently manages 3D-texture data across multiple fire emitters associated with a single voxel grid. As part of this, the voxel grid received several important bug fixes, including one for an out-of-bounds issue caused by discrepancies between the iteration and preliminary code. This fix ensures accurate and consistent rendering of voxel-based elements within the game.\n\nNarrative\nLast month, Narrative began sweeping through the scripts for the entire game to ensure they\u2019re still in line with the latest playthroughs. They also prepared for a number of mo-cap shoots to pick up additional content that was called out, which led to scripting, capturing placeholder recordings, and testing material to see if the content is ready to be captured.\n\nOutside of scenes, Narrative captured wildline sets for the various gangs that players will encounter in both FPS and flight sections of the campaign. They also captured wildlines for population NPCs (known internally as \u2018redshirts\u2019), who utilize dynamic conversation content to fill the gaps between the silent masses and scripted characters.\n\nAway from scripts and performances, the team started working through the vast amount of text that players will encounter. This includes everything from the moment-to-moment mission objectives, after-action reports that summarize the player\u2019s performance in the mission, environmental narrative (i.e. messages on terminals), and Galactapedia entries.\n\nTech Animation\nIn April, Tech Animation made significant progress on head-asset processing. This involved developing a semi-automated system that has not only reduced turnaround time but also improved asset quality.\n\nThe team also continued with DNA integrations, collaborating closely with other teams to integrate their data with the rest of the codebase. Support also continued for the various Feature teams.\n\nUI\nThe UI team spent part of April on a visual overhaul of the radial menus and weapon attachment screen. Starting from existing functionality, they created concept art to see how they could make the screens appear \u201cnext gen.\u201d Then, they created in-game prototypes using Building Blocks to prove that the 3D effects were achievable. The remaining task is to connect the prototypes to the game data and get them working with the various screen sets.\n\nUI continued to work alongside the Vehicle team to tweak the layout of vehicle HUDs based on feedback from the game director\u2019s playthroughs.\n\nLast month, tweaks included adding a visually improved pitch ladder. They also updated the visuals for some of the weapon screens and created some interesting concepts for use towards the end of the campaign.\n\nUI Tech kicked off work on the new interior and mini map. This is another large cross-team initiative that will ultimately improve the overall gameplay experience.\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team continued to provide effects support for several locations.\n\n\u201cWork also continued on a particularly complex destruction sequence, which has been quite challenging to complete due to the sheer physical size of it!\u201d VFX Team\n\nFinally, the team began to focus on weapon effects. This is a cross-project task to improve the overall quality and consistency of weapon VFX across SQ42 and the PU. It will also support new gameplay requirements, including damage and wear.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nApril 2023\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 05:03:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO-Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht f\u00fcr das Geschwader 42 im April. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich der Fahrzeugbewegungen, der Hauptanlagen und der feindlichen Banden.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Inhalt)\nIm April hat das KI-Inhaltsteam die Verhaltensweisen weiter verfeinert, die Animationen verbessert und neue Funktionen entwickelt. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die weitere Arbeit an den Verhaltensweisen Schlaf und Bettruhe, die verbesserte Animationen erhielten. Au\u00dferdem wurde an den verschiedenen Freizeitanimationen gefeilt, die es den Charakteren erm\u00f6glichen, fernzusehen und das mobiGlas auf den Etagenbetten zu benutzen.\n\nEs wurde ein einfacher Wachmann implementiert, der in den Bahnh\u00f6fen Stanton und Shubin patrouilliert und in den kommenden Monaten weiter verbessert werden soll. Er wurde auch so aktualisiert, dass er zwischen der Bastelbank und dem Schie\u00dfstand rotiert, um einen realistischeren Ablauf zu erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Deckbesatzung hat AI Content den Diagnosewagen verbessert, so dass die KI ihn wie einen Trolley um die Gladius schieben und an verschiedenen Stellen mit der Konsole interagieren kann. Au\u00dferdem wurden neue \"Scooch\"-Animationen hinzugef\u00fcgt und Blockout-Animationen f\u00fcr den Mannschaftstransporter erstellt, einschlie\u00dflich Ein- und Ausstiegsanimationen f\u00fcr den Fahrer, den Kopiloten und die R\u00fccksitze.\n\nDie Entwicklung des Kampfclubs und der Fortbewegung der Charaktere wurde fortgesetzt, wobei verschiedene Animationsverbesserungen eingef\u00fchrt wurden. So hat das Team zum Beispiel die T\u00fcrsteher-Animationen f\u00fcr den Eingang des Clubs aufpoliert und die KI-Animationen f\u00fcr Charaktere mit starken Schmerzen verbessert. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein neues Bewegungsset f\u00fcr die Charaktere \"Junkie\" und \"M\u00fcde\" erstellt, das f\u00fcr Abwechslung und visuelles Interesse sorgt.\n\nEs wurden verschiedene KI-Blockout-Animationen f\u00fcr Hausmeistert\u00e4tigkeiten erstellt, wie z. B. das Platzieren und Benutzen von Eimer und Mopp. AI Content hat auch gro\u00dfe Fortschritte beim Arbeitsablauf des Hausmeisters gemacht, wobei Design und Animation eng zusammengearbeitet haben.\n\nAI Content f\u00fcgte Variationen f\u00fcr den Wagen hinzu und entfernte sich damit von der Whitebox-Version. Auch eine weitere Erweiterung war geplant. Derzeit wird daran gearbeitet, das \"Ploppen\" des Wagens zu verhindern und die Platzierung der Kisten im Hangar zu verbessern, um ein realistischeres und weniger roboterhaftes Gef\u00fchl zu vermitteln.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm letzten Monat wurden die KI-Features f\u00fcr Charaktere, die Scharfsch\u00fctzengewehre benutzen, weiterentwickelt und ein Prototyp entwickelt, mit dem sie aus einer niedrigen Deckung heraus schie\u00dfen k\u00f6nnen. Dabei werden eine neue \u00dcberwacher-Eigenschaft und ein neuer Verhaltensablauf verwendet.\n\nAu\u00dferdem arbeiteten sie weiter am Nahkampfverhalten f\u00fcr eine bestimmte Begegnung, einschlie\u00dflich synchronisierter Angriffe zwischen Spieler und Feind. Dabei wird die Fortbewegung genutzt, die es dem Feind erm\u00f6glicht, sich dem Spieler zu n\u00e4hern und um ihn herum zu ducken und zu tauchen, wenn er sich zum Angriff bereit macht.\n\nDie KI-Features unterst\u00fctzen auch weiterhin den Einsatz von Waffen durch \"Transporter-Entit\u00e4ten\", also alles, was ein NSC reiten kann. Auch die soziale Arbeit der KI ging weiter: Das Team entwickelte eine vierbeinige Kreatur, die die Spieler\/innen streicheln k\u00f6nnen.\n\nKI (Tech)\nIm letzten Monat hat die KI-Technologie Fortschritte bei der Navigation und dem Bewegungssystem gemacht.\n\nSie haben auch die Aufgaben f\u00fcr den Navigationskosten-Bereichsmodifikator abgeschlossen, der bestimmte Bereiche markiert und die Kosten f\u00fcr Wege durch diese Bereiche erh\u00f6ht oder senkt; dies beeinflusst, welche Wege NSCs oder Bodenfahrzeuge w\u00e4hlen. Neben dem Feinschliff und dem Feedback zu dieser Funktion wurde auch eine M\u00f6glichkeit implementiert, mit der Entity-Tags den Kostenbereich beeinflussen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nEin Ort mit Feuer hat zum Beispiel hohe Kosten f\u00fcr normale NSCs, damit sie ihn meiden. F\u00fcr NSCs, die einen Feuerschutz tragen, sind die Kosten in demselben Gebiet jedoch niedriger.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde mit der Arbeit an der Kollisionsvermeidung von Bodenfahrzeugen begonnen, um das System so zu aktualisieren, dass es sowohl die Vermeidung von Fahrzeug-zu-Fahrzeug- als auch von Fahrzeug-zu-NPC-Kollisionen unterst\u00fctzt. Dazu musste die Trennung der Agenten vereinheitlicht werden. Zuvor waren sie nach Agentenart getrennt (mittlere Charaktere, gro\u00dfe Fahrzeuge usw.). Jetzt werden alle Agententypen mit unterschiedlichen Ausweichradien und -regeln gemeinsam verarbeitet, sofern sie sich im selben Navigationsvolumen befinden.\n\nDie KI-Techniker haben das Verhalten und die Anforderungen des taktischen Punktesystems in Bezug auf den Transit aktualisiert. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Transit im Bewegungssystem aufger\u00e4umt und optimiert. Dazu wurde die Logik der Bewegungspausenfunktion aktualisiert, die bei der Ausf\u00fchrung der Logik f\u00fcr die Navigationsverbindung verwendet wird. Jetzt wird nur noch die Bewegungsanforderung in diesem Moment unterbrochen und alle folgenden Anforderungen werden bearbeitet.\n\nIm Bereich der KI-Tools wurden Verbesserungen und Optimierungen am benutzbaren Koordinator vorgenommen. Das Team hat auch die Debugging-Tools f\u00fcr die KI erweitert und vor allem einen Visualizer f\u00fcr das Testen von Anfragen f\u00fcr das taktische Punktesystem hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nKI (Fahrzeugfunktionen)\nDas Team f\u00fcr die Fahrzeugfunktionen hat den neuen KI-Flow f\u00fcr den Kampf gegen J\u00e4ger fertiggestellt und kann nun gegen NSCs mit einer angemessenen Vielfalt an Verhaltensweisen spielen. K\u00fcrzlich haben sie mit dem Testen und Optimieren begonnen, werden aber auch weiterhin das Verhalten auf der Grundlage verschiedener Charaktereigenschaften ver\u00e4ndern. Zum Beispiel, indem sie sie aggressiver oder vorsichtiger machen, was zu sichtbaren Unterschieden im Verhalten der NSCs f\u00fchrt. Darauf wird sich das KI-Fahrzeug-Feature in den n\u00e4chsten Monaten konzentrieren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die Verfolgung von Schiffen durch Splines verbessert. Dazu wurden neue Algorithmen zur Berechnung der Geschwindigkeit eines Schiffes entlang eines Splines implementiert, um zu verhindern, dass es davonfliegt. Au\u00dferdem wurde mit der Funktion der prozedural generierten Splines experimentiert, die es Schiffen erm\u00f6glicht, um eine relativ detaillierte Geometrie herumzufliegen, ohne mit irgendetwas zusammenzusto\u00dfen. Dies wird f\u00fcr verschiedene Funktionen n\u00fctzlich sein, unter anderem f\u00fcr die Schiffsr\u00fcckruf-Funktion, die im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnt wurde.\n\nAnimation\nIm letzten Monat hat das Animationsteam an den NSCs der Spec Ops und der Screaming Galsons, dem Nahkampf der Vanduul und den Laufanimationen der Zivilisten gearbeitet. Au\u00dferdem haben sie Blockouts f\u00fcr Decken in Betten, den Hausmeister und das Tr\u00e4gerpersonal erstellt.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Animationen f\u00fcr eine neue Kreatur, das KI-Suchverhalten, die Waffenanpassung, die Spielerfutterlinie, die Spieler, die Spindt\u00fcren benutzen, und vieles mehr hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nEine Mo-Cap-Session wurde abgehalten, um die f\u00fcr den kommenden Monat ben\u00f6tigten Assets aufzunehmen. Au\u00dferdem waren zwei weitere Sitzungen geplant - eine mit einem Schauspieler und eine mit zwei, um verschiedene Kampfdaten aufzunehmen.\n\nAuf der Gesichtsseite bearbeitete das Team eine gro\u00dfe Anzahl von Auswahlen f\u00fcr Episode eins und kontrollierte die Qualit\u00e4t der erfassten Daten, damit der Rest des Teams mit der Arbeit daran beginnen kann.\n\nEngine\nIm letzten Monat hat das Team der Kern-Engine die in den letzten Monaten entwickelten Technologien ausgefeilt, damit sie in den Hauptentwicklungsprozess integriert werden k\u00f6nnen. Dazu geh\u00f6rt auch das Testen des neuen P4K-Formats, das den Start des Spiels beschleunigen wird. Sobald die Qualit\u00e4tssicherung abgeschlossen ist, wird das Engine-Team damit beginnen, die Technologie in den Hauptentwicklungsprozess zu integrieren und sie f\u00fcr alle anderen Abteilungen freizugeben.\n\nDas neue interne Code-Build-System, StarBuild, befindet sich in der Endphase, in der die Linux-Kompilierung aktiviert wird. Danach wird das Team damit beginnen, es intern auszurollen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Speicherverwaltung entwickelt das Engine-Team weiterhin ein internes Tool, um die Speichernutzung besser zu analysieren (und sp\u00e4ter die Speichernutzung des Spiels zu reduzieren).\n\nF\u00fcr den Gen12-Renderer hat das Team die letzten verbleibenden Rendering-P\u00e4sse auf die neue API portiert. Au\u00dferdem haben sie damit begonnen, den nicht mehr ben\u00f6tigten Legacy-Code zu l\u00f6schen.\n\nDie Verbesserungen an den Streaming-Systemen begannen. Zun\u00e4chst vereinfachte das Team die Logik zur Aktualisierung der Streaming-Daten pro Instanz, so dass weniger Code zu warten ist. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Streaming-Logik vom Haupt-Thread auf die Background-Worker verlagert, was die Frame-Zeit weniger beeinflusst und die Objekte schneller streamt.\n\nAuch am generischen Shape-System wurde gearbeitet, wobei der Schwerpunkt derzeit auf dem Editor liegt, der es den Designern erm\u00f6glicht, mehrere Untersegmente einzurichten. Um die Entity-Bereiche zu verbessern, wurden umfangreiche Code-Arbeiten durchgef\u00fchrt, um sicherzustellen, dass in allen F\u00e4llen konsistente und nicht doppelte Enter\/Leave-Ereignisse gesendet werden.\n\nDas System f\u00fcr die Lebensdauer von Entit\u00e4ten wurde ebenfalls aktualisiert, damit die Designer\/innen Bereiche mit unterschiedlichen Regeln festlegen k\u00f6nnen. So k\u00f6nnen z. B. Bereiche, in denen das Gameplay wichtig ist, wie z. B. Aufh\u00e4nger, aggressiv aufger\u00e4umt werden. Au\u00dferdem wurden verschiedene Fehlerbehebungen und Optimierungen vorgenommen.\n\nDas Physikteam f\u00fcgte dem Seilsystem eine Windenunterst\u00fctzung hinzu, die es erm\u00f6glicht, zwischen festen Befestigungen und Umlenkrollen zu wechseln.\n\nGeometrieteile erhalten jetzt eine eindeutige ID, damit sie nach Namen abgefragt werden k\u00f6nnen. Als Nebeneffekt werden dadurch mehr Anforderungen an Debug-Namen gestellt, was sie ausdrucksst\u00e4rker und global eindeutig macht. Au\u00dferdem kann die individuelle physische Kollision von Geometrieteilen jetzt deaktiviert werden.\n\nAuch bei physisch basierten Fahrzeugen mit R\u00e4dern wurde verbessert, wie sie den Kontakt mit harten Oberfl\u00e4chen handhaben. Ein neuer spezialisierter AABB-Baum wurde f\u00fcr die Verwendung mit vorzeichenbehafteten Abstandsfeldern eingef\u00fchrt, der eine schnelle Baumerzeugung auf Kosten eines langsameren Culling-Codes beg\u00fcnstigt.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurden verschiedene Fehlerbehebungen und Optimierungen vorgenommen.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nIm letzten Monat hat das Gameplay-Features-Team weiter an neuen mobiGlas-Apps gearbeitet, darunter das Widget f\u00fcr den Schiffsstatus auf dem Startbildschirm, die Benachrichtigungen und die Sammelbildschirme.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die Charakteranpassung \u00fcberarbeitet, um die n\u00e4chsten Funktionsebenen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, einschlie\u00dflich der Gesichtsformung, und das Feedback zur Benutzerfreundlichkeit umgesetzt.\n\nWeitere Optimierungsarbeiten wurden abgeschlossen. Zum Beispiel kann die Schiffsbesatzung jetzt mit einem minimalen Neuladen auf einen neuen Zeitplan wechseln, wenn die Spieler\/innen von einer Mission zur\u00fcckkommen oder die Zeit durch einen Ruhezustand vergangen ist. TrackView erhielt verbesserte Wiedergabe-Threads sowohl im Client als auch im Editor-Tool.\n\nEs wurde eine neue M\u00f6glichkeit hinzugef\u00fcgt, Lichtvolumen zu animieren. Jetzt kann das Team Gruppen von Lichtern mit fl\u00e4chigen, radialen oder zuf\u00e4lligen Sequenzen an- oder ausschalten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden der Starmap Zielmarkierungen hinzugef\u00fcgt, so dass sie immer geklemmt und sichtbar sind, auch wenn sie sich au\u00dferhalb des Bildschirms befinden oder mit einem anderen Objekt verschmelzen.\n\nAuch die Schnittstelle f\u00fcr die Fernsteuerung von Drohnen und Fahrzeugen wurde weiter \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nFunktionen (Fahrzeug)\nIm letzten Monat hat das Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeugfunktionen verschiedene UI-Funktionen weiterentwickelt. So unterst\u00fctzt das Multifunktionsdisplay (MFD) jetzt auch Kommunikationsanrufe, die von der gesamten Firma beim Spielen genutzt werden k\u00f6nnen. Dazu geh\u00f6rten die Fertigstellung der Aspekte, die zum Durchspielen des Spiels mit den neuen MFDs erforderlich sind, die Behebung bemerkenswerter Fehler und die Erstellung von Dokumentationen, die den Testern helfen.\n\n\"Das ist jetzt fast fertig, also werden wir weitere MFD-Ansichten implementieren, z. B. den Scan-\/Radarbildschirm und den IFCS-Schiffssystembildschirm. Team Fahrzeugfunktionen\n\nDas neue Fahrzeug-Heads-up-Display (HUD) steht kurz vor der Fertigstellung. Das visuelle Layout wird noch weiter \u00fcberarbeitet, ist aber schon weitgehend funktionsf\u00e4hig und wird h\u00e4ufig genutzt. Diese Arbeit erstreckte sich auch auf das UI des Gesch\u00fctzturms, das neue Grafiken und Funktionen erhielt, um das Gesamterlebnis zu verbessern.\n\nDie Fahrzeug-UI unterst\u00fctzte dann die Entwicklung von Markierungen im Spiel. Zu diesen Aufgaben geh\u00f6rt das Hinzuf\u00fcgen von Radarkontaktmarkierungen f\u00fcr Fahrzeuge, Missionsziele und Quantenziele. Da dies mehrere verschiedene Systeme umfasst, besteht das Hauptziel darin, sicherzustellen, dass der beabsichtigte Spielfluss durch die Levels klar kommuniziert wird.\n\nAbgesehen von der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che haben die Fahrzeugfunktionen die Wingman-Befehle fertiggestellt, die im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnt wurden. Dies f\u00fchrte zu verschiedenen Design\u00e4nderungen, darunter die Hinzuf\u00fcgung von Befehlen, die den Spielern helfen, ihre Fl\u00fcgelm\u00e4nner richtig zu steuern. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein KI-Tasking implementiert, damit die Fl\u00fcgelm\u00e4nner den Anweisungen folgen k\u00f6nnen. Die Dialoge der Charaktere werden derzeit \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nIm letzten Monat wurden die Steuerfl\u00e4chen weiterentwickelt, insbesondere der Autopilot. Dies erforderte eine eigene Autopilot-Einstellung, die sich anders verh\u00e4lt als der Thruster-Flug, da die Steuerfl\u00e4chen sehr dynamisch sind und das neue Flugmodell je nach atmosph\u00e4rischen Bedingungen stark variiert. Dieser neue Steuermechanismus steuert das Schiff \u00e4hnlich wie ein echtes Fly-by-Wire-System. Im letzten Monat wurde es ausgiebig getestet und steht kurz vor der Fertigstellung.\n\nGameplay Story\nIm Anschluss an den letzten Monat begann Gameplay Story im April mit der Erstellung einer weiteren Reihe von Animationen f\u00fcr die Gladius-Deckcrew. Dabei wurden verschiedene Elemente aus der ersten Serie wiederverwendet und die Skelettanimationen und Entfernungen angepasst.\n\nDanach ging es weiter mit kleineren Aktualisierungen in einer Vielzahl von Szenen. 20 Szenen wurden entweder mit neuen Posen, Requisiten, Start- und Endzeiten oder allgemeiner Aufpolierung und Wartung aktualisiert.\n\n\"All das war ein beachtliches Arbeitspensum, und es war ein tolles Gef\u00fchl, so viele Aktualisierungen zu schaffen. Gameplay Story\n\nIm vierten Kapitel wurde eine neue Szene eingef\u00fcgt und mehrere Szenen wurden durch neue Motion Capture-Aufnahmen erheblich aktualisiert.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurden in Kapitel 19 der Gameplay Story Szenen besprochen, die bisher noch nicht viel Aufmerksamkeit erhalten hatten.\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\nIm letzten Monat hat das Grafikteam daran gearbeitet, den Realismus des Spiels, die Funktionalit\u00e4t und den Arbeitsablauf der Entwickler mit einer Reihe von lang erwarteten Funktionen und Upgrades zu verbessern. Zum Beispiel ist es jetzt m\u00f6glich, lokal kompilierte Meshes zu streamen, was das Laden und Reproduzieren des Release-Builds deutlich beschleunigt. Der Editor hat au\u00dferdem eine neue HUD-Funktion erhalten, die anzeigt, wann Ressourcen kompiliert werden.\n\nDas Wasservolumen wurde f\u00fcr die Verwendung auf Planeten verfeinert, insbesondere das Volumen der Atmosph\u00e4re und des Nebels. Diese Integrationen sind Teil der Wasserlieferungen f\u00fcr das 2. Quartal, zu denen auch die Simulation von Wasserwellen f\u00fcr alle Gew\u00e4sser (bis hin zu Pf\u00fctzen) geh\u00f6rt.\n\nEine Reihe von Leistungs- und Kompatibilit\u00e4tsverbesserungen wurden am Kern-Renderer vorgenommen. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Beseitigung einiger veralteter Synchronisationen zwischen CPU und GPU, die in Nvidia-Treibern zu H\u00e4ngern f\u00fchren konnten.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem damit begonnen, volumetrischen Nebel und Gaswolken auf Vulkan umzustellen. Derzeit wird gepr\u00fcft, ob die Funktion aktiviert werden kann, nachdem wichtige Kompatibilit\u00e4ts-, Funktions- und visuelle Qualit\u00e4tskontrollen durchgef\u00fchrt wurden.\n\nDie UI Tech- und Grafik-Teams haben erhebliche Fortschritte bei der Innenkarte gemacht. Im letzten Monat wurden die wichtigsten visuellen Funktionen der Karte fertiggestellt, wobei der Schwerpunkt derzeit auf Leistungsverbesserungen und der Optimierung der Polygonanzahl liegt. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein Prototyp f\u00fcr die zeitliche Superaufl\u00f6sung integriert, der den Weg f\u00fcr eine verbesserte Aufl\u00f6sung und Klarheit im gesamten Spiel ebnet.\n\nBei der Weiterentwicklung der Feuertechnik verwaltet ein neuer gemeinsamer Ressourcenmanager jetzt effizient die 3D-Texturdaten mehrerer Feuer-Emitter, die mit einem einzigen Voxel-Gitter verbunden sind. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde das Voxel-Gitter von mehreren wichtigen Fehlern befreit, darunter auch von einem Problem, das durch Unstimmigkeiten zwischen dem Iterations- und dem vorl\u00e4ufigen Code verursacht wurde. Diese Korrektur gew\u00e4hrleistet eine genaue und konsistente Darstellung von voxelbasierten Elementen im Spiel.\n\nNarrative\nIm letzten Monat hat Narrative damit begonnen, die Skripte f\u00fcr das gesamte Spiel zu \u00fcberarbeiten, um sicherzustellen, dass sie immer noch mit den neuesten Playthroughs \u00fcbereinstimmen. Au\u00dferdem bereiteten sie sich auf eine Reihe von Mo-Cap-Drehs vor, um zus\u00e4tzliche Inhalte aufzunehmen. Dazu wurden Skripte erstellt, Platzhalteraufnahmen gemacht und Material getestet, um festzustellen, ob der Inhalt bereit f\u00fcr die Aufnahme ist.\n\nAu\u00dferhalb der Szenen nahm Narrative Wildline-Sets f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Gangs auf, auf die die Spieler\/innen sowohl im FPS- als auch im Flugteil der Kampagne treffen werden. Au\u00dferdem wurden Wildlines f\u00fcr NSCs aus der Bev\u00f6lkerung (intern als \"Rothemden\" bezeichnet) aufgenommen, die dynamische Gespr\u00e4chsinhalte nutzen, um die L\u00fccken zwischen der schweigenden Masse und den geskripteten Charakteren zu f\u00fcllen.\n\nAbseits von Skripten und Darbietungen begann das Team damit, die riesige Menge an Text zu bearbeiten, die den Spielern begegnen wird. Dazu geh\u00f6rt alles von den Missionszielen bis hin zu den Berichten nach der Aktion, die die Leistung des Spielers in der Mission zusammenfassen, bis hin zu Umgebungsberichten (z. B. Nachrichten auf Terminals) und Galactapedia-Eintr\u00e4gen.\n\nTechnische Animation\nIm April machte die Tech Animation bedeutende Fortschritte bei der Verarbeitung von Kopf-Assets. Dabei wurde ein halbautomatisches System entwickelt, das nicht nur die Bearbeitungszeit verk\u00fcrzt, sondern auch die Qualit\u00e4t der Assets verbessert hat.\n\nDas Team arbeitete au\u00dferdem weiter an der DNA-Integration und arbeitete eng mit anderen Teams zusammen, um deren Daten in die \u00fcbrige Codebasis zu integrieren. Auch die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Feature-Teams wurde fortgesetzt.\n\nUI\nDas UI-Team hat einen Teil des Aprils damit verbracht, die Radialmen\u00fcs und den Waffenanbringungsbildschirm optisch zu \u00fcberarbeiten. Ausgehend von der bestehenden Funktionalit\u00e4t erstellten sie Konzeptzeichnungen, um zu sehen, wie sie die Bildschirme \"Next Gen\" aussehen lassen k\u00f6nnen. Dann erstellten sie mit Building Blocks Prototypen im Spiel, um zu beweisen, dass die 3D-Effekte realisierbar sind. Die verbleibende Aufgabe besteht darin, die Prototypen mit den Spieldaten zu verbinden und sie mit den verschiedenen Bildschirms\u00e4tzen zum Laufen zu bringen.\n\nDas UI-Team arbeitete weiter mit dem Fahrzeugteam zusammen, um das Layout der Fahrzeug-HUDs auf der Grundlage des Feedbacks der Spielleiter\/innen zu optimieren.\n\nIm letzten Monat wurde u.a. eine visuell verbesserte Rangliste hinzugef\u00fcgt. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Optik einiger Waffenbildschirme aktualisiert und einige interessante Konzepte f\u00fcr das Ende der Kampagne entwickelt.\n\nUI Tech hat mit der Arbeit an der neuen Innen- und Minikarte begonnen. Dies ist eine weitere gro\u00dfe team\u00fcbergreifende Initiative, die letztendlich das gesamte Spielerlebnis verbessern wird.\n\nVFX\nIm letzten Monat hat das VFX-Team weiterhin Effekte f\u00fcr mehrere Orte bereitgestellt.\n\n\"Au\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an einer besonders komplexen Zerst\u00f6rungssequenz fortgesetzt, deren Fertigstellung aufgrund ihrer schieren Gr\u00f6\u00dfe eine ziemliche Herausforderung war!\" VFX-Team\n\nSchlie\u00dflich begann das Team, sich auf die Waffeneffekte zu konzentrieren. Dies ist eine projekt\u00fcbergreifende Aufgabe, um die Gesamtqualit\u00e4t und Konsistenz der Waffen-VFX in SQ42 und PU zu verbessern. Au\u00dferdem werden damit neue Anforderungen an das Gameplay, wie z. B. Schaden und Abnutzung, unterst\u00fctzt.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nApril 2023\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 05:03:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to April\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including vehicle movement, head assets, and enemy gangs.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nIn April, the AI Content team continued to refine behaviors, improve animations, and develop new features. This involved further work on the sleep and bed-relaxation behaviors, which received improved animations. They also polished the various leisure animations that allow characters to watch TV and use the mobiGlas on bunk beds.\n\nA basic security guard was implemented to patrol the Stanton and Shubin Station, which will be iterated on over the coming month. This was also updated to rotate between the tinker bench and firing range for a more realistic flow.\n\nFor the deck crew, AI Content upgraded the diagnostic cart, allowing AI to push it like a trolley around a Gladius and interact with the console at various points. They also added new \u2018scooch\u2019 animations and created blockout animations for the personnel carrier, including enter and exit animations for the driver, copilot, and backseats.\n\nDevelopment of the fight club and character locomotion continued, with various animation improvements being introduced. For example, the team polished the bouncer animations for the club entrance and improved AI animations for characters in severe pain. Additionally, they set up a new locomotion set for the \u2018junkie\u2019 and \u2018tired\u2019 characters, which adds variety and visual interest.\n\nVarious AI blockout animations for janitorial tasks were created, such as placing and using the bucket and mop. AI Content also made significant progress on the janitor's workflow, with Design and Animation working closely together.\n\nAI Content added variation to the trolley artwork, moving away from the whitebox version. Further expansion was planned too. They\u2019re currently looking to prevent trolley \u2018popping\u2019 and improve box placement in the hangar for a more-realistic and less-robotic feel.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, AI Features progressed with characters using sniper rifles, creating a prototype behavior that allows them to fire from low cover. This uses a new overwatch trait and behavior flow.\n\nThey also continued to work on the melee combat behavior for a specific encounter, including synchronized attacks between the player and enemy. This utilizes locomotion that allows the enemy to close in on the player and duck and dive around them when getting ready to attack.\n\nAI Features also continued to support weapon usage from \u2018transporter entities,\u2019 which refers to anything an NPC can ride. AI social work progressed too, with the team creating a four-legged creature that players can pet.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech progressed with navigation and movement system features.\n\nThey also completed tasks for the navigation-cost-area modifier, which will mark specific areas and increase or decrease the cost of paths that go through them; this will influence which paths NPCs or ground vehicles choose. Alongside polishing and providing feedback on the feature, a way for entity tags to influence cost area was implemented.\n\nFor example, a location with fire will have a high cost for normal NPCs to ensure they avoid it. However, the same area will have a lower cost for NPCs wearing fire protection.\n\nWork also began on ground-vehicle collision avoidance, which involved updating the system to support both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-NPC avoidance. This required unifying how agents are separated. Previously, they were separated by agent type (medium characters, large vehicles, etc.). Now, all agent types with different avoidance radiuses and rules are processed together providing they\u2019re in the same navigation volume.\n\nAI Tech updated behavior and tactical-point-system requests relating to transit. They also cleaned up and optimized transit in the movement system, which involved updating the pause-movement functionality logic used when running navigation-link logic. Now, it will only pause the movement request at that moment, and all follow requests will be processed.\n\nOn the AI Tools side, improvements and optimizations were made to the usable coordinator. The team also extended the debug AI tools, most notably adding a visualizer for testing tactical-point-system requests.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nThe Vehicle Feature team completed the new fighter-combat AI-flow design and can now play against NPCs with a reasonable variety of behaviors. They recently moved onto testing and tweaking, though they\u2019ll continue to further modify behaviors based on various character traits. For example, making them more aggressive or cautious, which results in visible differences in NPC behavior. This will be the AI Vehicle Feature\u2019s focus over the coming months.\n\nTime was also spent improving ship-spline following. This involved implementing new algorithms for calculating a ship\u2019s speed along a spline to prevent it from flying off. They also began experimenting with the procedurally generated splines feature, which enables ships to fly around reasonably detailed geometry without colliding with anything. This will be useful for various features, including the ship-recall feature mentioned in last month\u2019s report.\n\nAnimation\nLast month, the Animation team worked on the spec ops and Screaming Galsons NPCs, Vanduul melee combat, and civilian walk animations. They also created blockouts for blanket use in beds, the janitor, and carrier personnel.\n\nThen, animations were added for a new creature, the AI searching behavior, weapon customization, the player chow line, players using locker doors, and more.\n\nA mo-cap session was held to capture assets needed for the coming month. Two further sessions were also planned - one with a single actor and one with two to capture various combat data.\n\nOn the facial side, the team processed a large number of selects for episode one, quality-controlling the captured data so the rest of the team can start working on it.\n\nEngine\nLast month, the Core Engine team ironed out tech developed over the last few months, readying it to be integrated into the main development stream. This includes testing the new P4K format, which will speed up the game\u2019s startup. When QA is finished, the Engine team will begin integrating it into the main development stream and enable it for all other departments.\n\nThe new internal code-build system, StarBuild, is in the final stages of having Linux compilation enabled. Afterward, the team will start to roll this out internally.\n\nFor memory management, the Engine team are continuing to develop an internal tool to better analyze memory usage (and later reduce the memory usage of the game).\n\nFor the Gen12 renderer, the team ported the last remaining legacy rendering passes to the new API. They also began deleting the no-longer-needed legacy code.\n\nImprovements to the streaming systems began. First, the team simplified logic to update the per-instance streaming data, which will leave less code to maintain. Additionally, they began moving more streaming logic away from the main thread to background workers; this affects the frame time less and streams objects much faster.\n\nWork was also done on the generic shape system, with the current focus on the editor to allow the designers to set up multiple sub-segments. To improve entity areas, significant code work was done to ensure consistent and non-duplicate enter\/leave events are sent in all cases.\n\nThe entity lifetime system was also updated to allow the designers to specify areas with different rules. For example, adding aggressive cleanup to areas where gameplay is important, like hangers. Various bug fixes and optimizations were completed too.\n\nThe Physics team added winch support to the rope system, which allows them to switch between fixed and pulley attachments.\n\nGeometry parts are now assigned a unique ID to enable them to be queried by name. As a side effect, this puts more requirements on debug names, which will make them more expressive and globally unique. Additionally, the individual physical collision of geometry parts can now be disabled.\n\nImprovements were also made to physically based wheeled vehicles on how they handle contact with hard surfaces. A new specialized AABB tree was introduced for use with signed distance fields, which favors a fast tree generating speed at the cost of slower culling code.\n\nLastly, various bug fixes and optimizations were done.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nLast month, the Gameplay Features team continued working on new mobiGlas apps, including the ship-status home-screen widget, notifications, and collectible screens.\n\nThey also revisited the character customizer to add the next layers of functionality, including face sculpting, and implemented usability feedback.\n\nFurther optimization work was completed. For example, a ship\u2019s crew can now snap to a new schedule with minimal reloading when players come back from a mission or time has passed via sleep. TrackView received improved playback threads both in-client and in the editor tool too.\n\nA new way to animate light volumes was added. Now, the team can turn groups of lights on or off using planar, radial, or random sequences.\n\nObjective markers were also added to the Starmap so that they\u2019re always clamped and visible, even when off-screen or merging with another entity.\n\nThe drone\/vehicle remote-control interface was further iterated on too.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, the Vehicle Features team progressed with various UI features. As part of this, the multi-function-display (MFD) system now supports comms calls, which was completed for the wider company to use when playing the game. This involved completing the aspects needed to play through the game with the new MFDs, fixing notable bugs, and creating documentation to help testers.\n\n\u201cThis is just about complete now, so we\u2019ll move onto implementing more MFD views, such as the scanning\/radar screen and IFCS ship system screen.\u201d Vehicle Features Team\n\nThe new vehicle heads-up display (HUD) is nearing completion. Further iteration is underway on the visual layout, though it\u2019s largely functional and widely in use. This work also extended to the turret UI, which received new visuals and functionality to improve the overall experience.\n\nVehicle UI then supported the development of in-game markers. These tasks include adding radar-contact markers to vehicles, mission objectives, and quantum destinations. As this encompasses several different systems, the main goal is to ensure the intended flow through the game\u2019s levels is clearly communicated.\n\nAway from UI, Vehicle Features finished the wingman commands mentioned in last month\u2019s report. This led to various design changes, including the addition of commands to help players manage their wingmen correctly. They also implemented AI tasking to enable the wingmen to follow directions. Supporting character dialogue is currently underway.\n\nControl surfaces were further developed last month, specifically autopilot. This required a custom autopilot setup that behaves differently to thruster flight, as control surfaces are highly dynamic and the new flight model varies greatly depending on atmospheric conditions. This new control mechanism flies the ship in a similar way to real-life fly-by-wire systems. Last month, it was heavily tested and is currently nearing completion.\n\nGameplay Story\nFollowing on from last month, Gameplay Story began April creating another series of animations for the Gladius deck crew. For this, they reused various assets from the first series and adjusted skeleton animations and distances.\n\nAfter this, they progressed with minor updates across a wide range of scenes, including updating 20 scenes with either new poses, prop updates, start\/end times, or general polish and maintenance.\n\n\u201cAll of this was a considerable body of work and it felt great to accomplish so many updates.\u201d Gameplay Story\n\nA new scene was also implemented into chapter four, and significant updates were made to several scenes using new motion capture.\n\nFinally, Gameplay Story began discussing scenes in chapter 19 that had not previously received much attention.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nLast month, the Graphics team worked towards enhancing the game\u2019s realism, functionality, and developer workflow with a range of long-awaited features and upgrades. For example, streaming locally compiled skinned meshes is now possible, which provides much quicker loading and replication of the release build. The editor also received a new HUD feature that indicates when resources are being compiled.\n\nWater volume finetuning began for use on planets, specifically with atmospheric and fog volumes. These integrations are part of the Q2 water deliverables, which include water ripple simulations for all bodies of water (even down to puddles).\n\nA series of performance and compatibility improvements were made to the core renderer. This included the removal of some legacy CPU-to-GPU buffer management synchronization, which could cause hangs in Nvidia drivers.\n\nThe team also began moving volumetric fog and gas clouds to Vulkan. They\u2019re currently looking to enable the feature following essential compatibility, functionality, and visual quality-control fixes.\n\nThe UI Tech and Graphics teams made considerable progress on the interior map. Last month, the map\u2019s core visual features were completed, with the current focus on performance improvements and polycount optimization. A temporal super-resolution prototype was integrated too, paving the way for improved resolution and clarity across the wider game.\n\nFor the ongoing development of fire tech, a new shared resource manager now efficiently manages 3D-texture data across multiple fire emitters associated with a single voxel grid. As part of this, the voxel grid received several important bug fixes, including one for an out-of-bounds issue caused by discrepancies between the iteration and preliminary code. This fix ensures accurate and consistent rendering of voxel-based elements within the game.\n\nNarrative\nLast month, Narrative began sweeping through the scripts for the entire game to ensure they\u2019re still in line with the latest playthroughs. They also prepared for a number of mo-cap shoots to pick up additional content that was called out, which led to scripting, capturing placeholder recordings, and testing material to see if the content is ready to be captured.\n\nOutside of scenes, Narrative captured wildline sets for the various gangs that players will encounter in both FPS and flight sections of the campaign. They also captured wildlines for population NPCs (known internally as \u2018redshirts\u2019), who utilize dynamic conversation content to fill the gaps between the silent masses and scripted characters.\n\nAway from scripts and performances, the team started working through the vast amount of text that players will encounter. This includes everything from the moment-to-moment mission objectives, after-action reports that summarize the player\u2019s performance in the mission, environmental narrative (i.e. messages on terminals), and Galactapedia entries.\n\nTech Animation\nIn April, Tech Animation made significant progress on head-asset processing. This involved developing a semi-automated system that has not only reduced turnaround time but also improved asset quality.\n\nThe team also continued with DNA integrations, collaborating closely with other teams to integrate their data with the rest of the codebase. Support also continued for the various Feature teams.\n\nUI\nThe UI team spent part of April on a visual overhaul of the radial menus and weapon attachment screen. Starting from existing functionality, they created concept art to see how they could make the screens appear \u201cnext gen.\u201d Then, they created in-game prototypes using Building Blocks to prove that the 3D effects were achievable. The remaining task is to connect the prototypes to the game data and get them working with the various screen sets.\n\nUI continued to work alongside the Vehicle team to tweak the layout of vehicle HUDs based on feedback from the game director\u2019s playthroughs.\n\nLast month, tweaks included adding a visually improved pitch ladder. They also updated the visuals for some of the weapon screens and created some interesting concepts for use towards the end of the campaign.\n\nUI Tech kicked off work on the new interior and mini map. This is another large cross-team initiative that will ultimately improve the overall gameplay experience.\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team continued to provide effects support for several locations.\n\n\u201cWork also continued on a particularly complex destruction sequence, which has been quite challenging to complete due to the sheer physical size of it!\u201d VFX Team\n\nFinally, the team began to focus on weapon effects. This is a cross-project task to improve the overall quality and consistency of weapon VFX across SQ42 and the PU. It will also support new gameplay requirements, including damage and wear.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2023-05-10T20:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"2 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 19:09:09","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":19282,"next_id":19284}}