{"data":{"id":19373,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: June 2023","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/19373-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-June-2023","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19373","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19373","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":4,"translations":{"en_EN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJune 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 07:05:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to June\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including relaxation activities, water tech, and electromagnetic gas clouds.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, the AI Content team continued working on various behaviors. These ranged from NPC behaviors during downtime and rest (eating, exercising, sleeping, etc.) to more official and job-focused behaviors from members of the Stanton and aboard Shubin station. Dynamic conversations were also introduced among the deck crew where they discuss their work to create a more cohesive atmosphere. NPCs were also implemented in several key areas to help flesh out and fill the environments, while various locomotions were also added to these NPCs to make movement and crowds feel more realistic. These ranged from security guards on tram stops, to janitors on Shubin, to 'hawker' kisok-based vendors that can interact with players and NPCs.\n\nFor the Fight Club, speed animations were added for crowd spectators alongside high-quality fight animations.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, the team worked on reactions to restrained AI, which enables players to use hand and leg restraints to prevent a character from moving. This builds on the healing and waking of downed and unconscious AI. As restraining can work in tandem with other actor statuses, there were numerous cases to deal with, including the AI being awake, unconscious, or bleeding out whilst restrained.\n\nThe team then moved on to a gunfight section within the campaign. In this situation, the AI needs to choose cover opposite the player in a circular arena. This required a bespoke TPS query to provide the cover and special functionality to recognize when to move to a new position.\n\nThey also continued to polish and iterate on a wide range of other functionalities to improve overall quality, including melee attacks, buddy AI, grenade throwing, grenade reactions, and attack and defend areas.\n\nOn the animation side, the team continued to iterate on full animation sets to implement the different combat styles employed by the game\u2019s various factions.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech finalized their work on dynamic pathfinding regeneration. As mentioned in previous reports, this feature allows dynamic paths to detect when a navigation mesh is modified and check whether it\u2019s still valid or if a new path request is needed. When a new dynamic path is requested, the pathing component creates and stores navigation anchors. These anchors notify the pathing component each time the mesh changes, which then checks through navigation raycasts to see if the path is still valid. If not, the last part of the path is recomputed.\n\nNext, the team continued developing a feature to allow NPCs to enter and exit a ship\u2019s airlock from EVA. For this, they had to consider cases when a ship or space station is moving or slightly rotating. They\u2019re currently working on a scenario for transitioning from a ship with gravity to zero-g by vaulting over a ledge.\n\nFor tools, AI Tech continued improving and extending functionality for Apollo Subsumption, including adding two new windows for the task-archetypes and variable-type editors. This will allow the team to better visualize and modify archetypes and variables.\n\nThe other AI tool, the usable group coordinator, received improvements too. This included a minor flow refactor to reduce the performance impact from bad setups and to more clearly notify the designers what\u2019s wrong.\n\nLast month, AI Tech also supported existing features and the upcoming release builds. For navigation links, they created new flowgraph nodes that allow the designers to disable and re-enable navigation links for a platform or object container. For example, this will enable NPCs to use moving platforms.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nAI\u2019s Vehicle Feature team spent the month finalizing the new combat AI, enabling it throughout SQ42. This rework has been in development for a while and improves the overall flight combat in the game.\n\nThe team are now tuning, tweaking, and improving the combat experience.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll be soon taking a closer look at every single individual combat encounter and fine-tuning them all to feel great.\u201d AI Vehicle Features\n\nAnimation\nLast month, Animation began a deep dive into every parent asset in the game to cull broken, not-needed, and poorly performing animations.\n\nThey continued to work on zero-g and takedowns, with recent work on heavy denials and sedative takedowns. They also progressed with animations for personal carriers, animals, the janitor behavior, crowds cheering, and player revival by AI. Support was given to scenes across various chapters and data from a recent mo-cap session was processed. Work on malfunctions and new mobiGlas animations progressed. The healing and un-restraining flow now works properly too.\n\nOn the Facial side, the team worked on idle faces for the various states of the AI, including sick, punk, severe pain, tired, scared, and drunk.\n\n\u201cThis will improve the AI considerably, as we believe the moment you see a person\u2019s face you naturally look at it, instead of when that face is hidden by a helmet, you end up looking at the full body. We have also been working on facial animations for many narrative scenes.\u201d Animation Team\n\nRegarding mo-cap, the team prepared for an upcoming narrative shoot along with one intended to capture specific character actions and pickups. They also prepared for several gameplay mini-captures.\n\nAudio\nJune saw the Audio team enhancing sounds across the game; SFX designed and implemented essential assets for ambience, weapons, and UI, while Audio Code finished developing cutting-edge propagation tech to redefine how sound travels. July will see them move onto cinematics tech improvements.\n\nThe Dialogue team refined the character-breathing system for different health states, fixing bugs and organizing dialogue across the campaign. This also involved investigating the various health states of the player character and how breathing styles can elevate the experience.\n\nIn July, the team are holding a performance-capture session to cover numerous scenes in the game. In preparation, they created a master document to track every piece of dialogue implemented in the game.\n\nEngine\nIn June, the Core Engine team finished integrating the latest changes into the main development branch. This took a significant effort, but the team managed to stabilize and roll out the many major rewrites made over the past few months.\n\nAdditionally, experiments were done on a more cooperative threading model to execute physics code, which should deliver general performance improvements.\n\nFor generic shapes, all editor-side work for regular shapes was finished and is now with the artists for feedback. The next stage is editor support for multiple sub-segments to allow the team to build more complex shapes out of primitive sub-shapes.\n\nThe StarBuild, P4K v2.0, and memReplay systems received various improvements and new features in preparation for them rolling out to other teams.\n\nThe Physics team supported the game teams with various bug fixes, progressed with cantilever beams for the Maelstrom editor, and investigated solver improvements for driven ragdolls.\n\nAn ImGUI view was then implemented to allow rapid tweaking of simulation parameters for character-attached cloth so that changes become immediately visible.\n\nThe Entity System Tech team integrated their recent improvements into the main development branch. They then worked on various spawning-time improvements and cost visualizations to allow for further guided loading-time optimization.\n\nFinally, async entity loading was enabled in the editor for faster startup and improved efficiency.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nGameplay features spent part of the month adding new mobiGlas applications, including the Galactapedia, which is a reference for people, vehicles, planets, systems, items, and everything else in the universe. As players progress, the Galactapedia will be updated with the information gathered.\n\nThe Personal Status app now has a Skills page, detailing the player\u2019s abilities and how they have improved. It also includes an Attributes page, detailing what items have been unlocked and how progress is going on others.\n\nThe team also implemented a way for the designers to create custom damage maps. These can be applied to vehicles or items, giving more control over how damaged they appear over time.\n\nFollowing last month\u2019s work, Gameplay Features further progressed with the minimap, adding markers for the player, NPCs, objectives, and more. These can now be \u201cclamped\u201d to the edge of the map if they\u2019re offscreen.\n\nAdditional work was done on the character customizer too, exposing it to the new hair-rendering tech that allows players to change their hair\u2019s base color and highlights.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, Vehicle Features supported various design initiatives across SQ42\u2019s chapters, including work on The Coil\u2019s electromagnetic gas clouds. The team worked alongside VFX and Design to implement various special effects to support the player's experience of flying into and around the gas clouds.\n\nThe team also supported smaller changes to other chapters, new features to enable the AI teams to create special set pieces, and ways for TrackView to control vehicles better.\n\nThey also continued to finalize Control Surfaces and the new aerodynamic flight model, which were integrated into the normal ship throttle and speed-control mechanisms. They also integrated other environmental effects relating to Master Modes so they now work across the different flight modes.\n\n\u201cWe should hopefully be at a point now where the new flight model can be enabled game wide and tested in situ in SQ42 gameplay.\u201d Vehicle Features Team\n\nVehicle Features further developed various UI areas in June too. To help with the flow of levels, they worked with other teams on a markers-and-objectives system that shows players where to go, what destinations exist, and what things are around them. It also includes new markers for quantum destinations, scanning signatures, and more. These markers can contextually enable and disable depending on progress in the game.\n\nThe team progressed with the ship-loadout terminal. This is a physical terminal in the Idris hangar that allows players to customize their ships before flying out on missions. It\u2019s currently being integrated with the various ship items so they show up alongside the player\u2019s items.\n\nMulti-function displays (MFDs) also progressed. They\u2019re currently enabled game-wide and are being tested in various levels. Several issues were fixed and the team is now focusing on unique MFDs for the scanning system to show contacts and allow the player to look up information about the things they\u2019ve scanned.\n\nFocus was also given to the general look and feel of vehicle cockpits. For example, the team added new camera shakes when using the afterburner, stalling when flying with aerodynamics, and other smaller camera movements to improve the overall feel of piloting a ship.\n\nLastly, Vehicle Features worked on the boat physics model. The core physics model works well, though improvements and tweaks were made to improve the experience as other features were completed.\n\nGameplay Story\nJune saw Gameplay Story continue to maintain and improve a large number of scenes across the campaign. Two scenes were updated to use the approved seated pose, one will now utilize the approved datapad, and another was updated to match the approved button height. Alongside this, a scene in chapter one was expanded with several new encouragement animations and new dialogue.\n\nThe team then supported the wider development initiative on chapter five, improving a character introduction at the beginning to make it more responsive. New start and end animations were added to two different scenes in the middle of the chapter, and a full polish was completed for a large scene at the end.\n\nAlongside this, the team got all of the bridge-operator seat setups approved (just the air-traffic controller's seat remains). This unblocked several scenes for the Cinematics and wider Gameplay Story team.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nJune saw the Planet Tech team wrapping up their latest tools and working on the new water system. Water ripples can now be simulated across region borders, and further reworks to rendercode integrations with planetary atmospheric passes made the process smoother. Quantum obstacles for Generic Shapes were also physicalized and passed to the Engine team for integration.\n\nThe Graphics team spent part of the month fixing bugs, improving the render thread, and developing the upcoming temporal-upscaling system. For global illumination, a ray-tracing prototype is now in progress, and work began on screen-space probes. Screen-space shadows are now more consistent, and canvas-decal streaming issues were resolved.\n\nGen12 and Vulkan also received various bug fixes that impacted rendering and streaming performance. The GPU resource lifetime was restructured, and WAW hazards for RenderGraph deferred execution are handled more efficiently too.\n\nThe first iteration of entity spawning based on MeshSetup and CGAs was submitted, which is required for Maelstrom.\n\nAlongside UI Tech and other SQ42 teams, Graphics improved the performance and visual quality of the area map. The interior and FPS mini-maps now use the Render Layers feature, which can now be applied to CGA joints, skin, and CGF attachments. Incorrect UI edge cases were also resolved and now scale correctly with scene exposure.\n\nThe VFX team enabled DataForge to support particle library groups in preparation for the upcoming changes to weapon-effect setups.\n\nA crash impacting fire-related child effects was fixed, and an entity-wide burn state can now be applied that uses dirt parameters and object temperature to determine damage and glow; glow uses a specific shader from permanent effects for game-wide consistency.\n\nLightning was also improved. For example, lightning cascades can be timed with a new controller and ship shields now trigger when struck by lightning.\n\nLevel Design\nJune saw Level Design make another significant push on chapter five\u2019s Shubin Archon content. This is the team\u2019s largest walk-and-talk level, featuring two NPC guides and numerous background scenes and NPCs.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a huge challenge to implement and another maintaining it, but we\u2019re very pleased with where we are at with it now.\u201d Level Design Team\n\nThey also continued to focus on Stanton and Krugeri interstitial scenes. For example, they made a full pass on an emergency medical triage area in the Krugeri\u2019s hangar.\n\nNarrative\nLast month, Narrative worked closely with Core Gameplay Design and Audio on player wildlines that will be used throughout the game, covering everything from generic responses to providing additional assistance during puzzles. This work was slightly accelerated as the team prepared to capture the remaining player lines in an upcoming shoot.\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to sync with the level designers to refine scripts based on feedback from placeholder audio. Once written, they recorded new placeholder versions so they can experience the flow in future reviews.\n\nAs the scripts continue to solidify, the team expanded tasks to begin addressing the various text needs of the game. This included outlining the game\u2019s version of the Galactapedia (determining which entries will be included from the current list and which will be crafted specifically for SQ42), various collectibles, player skills, and mission performance reviews. Once the team has finished capturing the remaining narrative and gameplay content, they\u2019ll focus more on these text requirements and other requests, including environmental messages and fluff screens that will appear throughout the game to provide additional storytelling.\n\nR&D\nIn June, work on atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering continued. Transmittance profiles and their filter chains were optimized and improved to reduce noise and artifacts in raymarch results. Further research went into the temporal upsampling of those results to produce a stable and detailed full-resolution frame that can then be composited into a scene.\n\nTech Animation\nJune saw Tech Animation integrate their long-awaiting changes to the DNA system. This enables new head assets and provides a pipeline that will open new ways to author and customize new game content.\n\nThe team then began new initiatives while they wait for further head art. This included updating the Maya pipeline codebase from Python 2.7 to 3.7 and thoroughly testing it. This was released to the user base in June, with the team currently working through the final bugs.\n\nVFX\nAside from the usual support for locations and cinematic sequences, VFX investigated shader requirements for fire propagation. Code-wise, the fire-propagation system has been in progress for a while, but it has now reached the point where the VFX artists can work with Environment Art to decide how various locations should look when burning and burned out.\n\nImprovements and optimizations were also made for various lightning effects.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nJuni 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 07:05:2023\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 Juni. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, darunter Entspannungsaktivit\u00e4ten, Wassertechnologie und elektromagnetische Gaswolken.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung der Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Inhalt)\nIm letzten Monat hat das KI-Inhaltsteam weiter an verschiedenen Verhaltensweisen gearbeitet. Diese reichten von NSC-Verhaltensweisen w\u00e4hrend der Ruhezeiten (essen, trainieren, schlafen usw.) bis hin zu offizielleren und aufgabenbezogenen Verhaltensweisen von Mitgliedern der Stanton und an Bord der Station Shubin. Au\u00dferdem wurden dynamische Gespr\u00e4che zwischen der Deckscrew eingef\u00fchrt, in denen sie ihre Arbeit besprechen, um eine koh\u00e4rentere Atmosph\u00e4re zu schaffen. Au\u00dferdem wurden in mehreren Schl\u00fcsselbereichen NSCs eingesetzt, um die Umgebungen mit Leben zu f\u00fcllen, und es wurden verschiedene Bewegungsabl\u00e4ufe f\u00fcr diese NSCs hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die Bewegungen und Menschenmengen realistischer zu gestalten. Diese reichten von Sicherheitskr\u00e4ften an Stra\u00dfenbahnhaltestellen \u00fcber Hausmeister in Shubin bis hin zu \"Hawker\"-Verk\u00e4ufern auf Kisok-Basis, die mit Spielern und NSCs interagieren k\u00f6nnen.\n\nF\u00fcr den Fight Club wurden neben hochwertigen Kampfanimationen auch Geschwindigkeitsanimationen f\u00fcr Zuschauer hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm letzten Monat hat das Team an den Reaktionen auf die gefesselte KI gearbeitet, die es den Spieler\/innen erm\u00f6glicht, Hand- und Beinfesseln zu benutzen, um einen Charakter an der Bewegung zu hindern. Dies baut auf der Heilung und dem Aufwecken von niedergeschlagener und bewusstloser KI auf. Da die Fesselung in Kombination mit anderen Akteurszust\u00e4nden funktioniert, gab es zahlreiche F\u00e4lle, in denen die KI wach, bewusstlos oder verblutet war, w\u00e4hrend sie gefesselt war.\n\nAnschlie\u00dfend ging das Team zu einem Schie\u00dfwettbewerb innerhalb der Kampagne \u00fcber. In dieser Situation muss die KI gegen\u00fcber dem Spieler in einer kreisf\u00f6rmigen Arena in Deckung gehen. Dies erforderte eine ma\u00dfgeschneiderte TPS-Abfrage, um die Deckung zu gew\u00e4hrleisten und spezielle Funktionen, um zu erkennen, wann eine neue Position eingenommen werden muss.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde an einer Vielzahl anderer Funktionen gefeilt, um die Gesamtqualit\u00e4t zu verbessern, z. B. Nahkampfangriffe, KI-Kumpel, Granatenwurf, Granatenreaktionen und Angriffs- und Verteidigungsbereiche.\n\nAuf der Animationsseite arbeitete das Team weiter an kompletten Animationssets, um die verschiedenen Kampfstile der verschiedenen Fraktionen des Spiels umzusetzen.\n\nKI (Technik)\nIm letzten Monat hat die KI-Abteilung ihre Arbeit an der dynamischen Wegfindung abgeschlossen. Wie bereits in fr\u00fcheren Berichten erw\u00e4hnt, erm\u00f6glicht diese Funktion dynamischen Pfaden, zu erkennen, wenn ein Navigationsnetz ver\u00e4ndert wird, und zu pr\u00fcfen, ob es noch g\u00fcltig ist oder ob eine neue Pfadanforderung erforderlich ist. Wenn ein neuer dynamischer Pfad angefordert wird, erstellt und speichert die Pfadfindungskomponente Navigationsanker. Diese Anker benachrichtigen die Pathing-Komponente jedes Mal, wenn sich das Mesh \u00e4ndert, und diese pr\u00fcft dann anhand der Navigations-Raycasts, ob der Pfad noch g\u00fcltig ist. Wenn nicht, wird der letzte Teil des Pfades neu berechnet.\n\nAls N\u00e4chstes entwickelte das Team eine Funktion, die es NSCs erm\u00f6glicht, die Luftschleuse eines Schiffes von EVA aus zu betreten und zu verlassen. Dabei mussten sie F\u00e4lle ber\u00fccksichtigen, in denen sich ein Schiff oder eine Raumstation bewegt oder leicht dreht. Zurzeit arbeiten sie an einem Szenario f\u00fcr den \u00dcbergang von einem Schiff mit Schwerkraft in die Schwerelosigkeit, indem sie \u00fcber einen Vorsprung springen.\n\nBei den Werkzeugen hat AI Tech die Funktionalit\u00e4t von Apollo Subsumption weiter verbessert und erweitert, u.a. durch das Hinzuf\u00fcgen von zwei neuen Fenstern f\u00fcr die Editoren f\u00fcr Aufgaben- und Variablentypen. Damit kann das Team Archetypen und Variablen besser visualisieren und ver\u00e4ndern.\n\nDas andere KI-Tool, der nutzbare Gruppenkoordinator, wurde ebenfalls verbessert. Dazu geh\u00f6rte eine kleine \u00dcberarbeitung des Ablaufs, um die Auswirkungen von fehlerhaften Setups auf die Leistung zu verringern und die Designer\/innen deutlicher darauf hinzuweisen, was falsch ist.\n\nIm letzten Monat hat AI Tech auch bestehende Funktionen und die kommenden Release-Builds unterst\u00fctzt. F\u00fcr Navigationslinks wurden neue Flowgraph-Knoten erstellt, die es den Designern erm\u00f6glichen, Navigationslinks f\u00fcr eine Plattform oder einen Objektcontainer zu deaktivieren und wieder zu aktivieren. Dadurch k\u00f6nnen NSCs zum Beispiel bewegliche Plattformen benutzen.\n\nAI (Fahrzeugfunktionen)\nDas Team f\u00fcr die Fahrzeugfunktionen der KI hat den Monat damit verbracht, die neue Kampf-KI fertigzustellen und sie in SQ42 zu aktivieren. Diese \u00dcberarbeitung befindet sich schon seit einiger Zeit in der Entwicklung und verbessert den Flugkampf im Spiel insgesamt.\n\nDas Team arbeitet jetzt an der Optimierung und Verbesserung des Kampferlebnisses.\n\n\"Wir werden uns bald jede einzelne Kampfbegegnung genauer ansehen und sie so abstimmen, dass sie sich gro\u00dfartig anf\u00fchlt.\" KI-Fahrzeugeigenschaften\n\nAnimation\nLetzten Monat hat die Abteilung Animation damit begonnen, alle \u00fcbergeordneten Objekte im Spiel unter die Lupe zu nehmen, um kaputte, nicht ben\u00f6tigte und schlecht funktionierende Animationen auszumerzen.\n\nSie arbeiteten weiter an der Schwerelosigkeit und den Takedowns, zuletzt an den schweren Verweigerungen und den Sedativ-Takedowns. Au\u00dferdem wurden die Animationen f\u00fcr pers\u00f6nliche Tr\u00e4ger, Tiere, das Verhalten des Hausmeisters, jubelnde Menschenmengen und die Wiederbelebung von Spielern durch die KI weiterentwickelt. Es wurden Szenen aus verschiedenen Kapiteln unterst\u00fctzt und Daten aus einer k\u00fcrzlichen Mo-Cap-Session verarbeitet. Die Arbeit an Fehlfunktionen und neuen mobiGlas-Animationen ging voran. Auch die Heilung und Entfesselung funktioniert jetzt richtig.\n\nAuf der Gesichtsseite arbeitete das Team an leeren Gesichtern f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Zust\u00e4nde der KI, darunter krank, Punk, starke Schmerzen, m\u00fcde, ver\u00e4ngstigt und betrunken.\n\n\"Das wird die KI erheblich verbessern, denn wir glauben, dass man in dem Moment, in dem man das Gesicht einer Person sieht, ganz nat\u00fcrlich darauf schaut, anstatt wenn das Gesicht durch einen Helm verdeckt ist, den ganzen K\u00f6rper zu betrachten. Wir haben auch an Gesichtsanimationen f\u00fcr viele erz\u00e4hlerische Szenen gearbeitet.\" Animationsteam\n\nIm Bereich Mo-Cap bereitete sich das Team auf einen bevorstehenden narrativen Dreh sowie auf einen Dreh vor, bei dem bestimmte Aktionen und Aufnahmen der Charaktere festgehalten werden sollten. Au\u00dferdem bereiteten sie mehrere Mini-Aufnahmen f\u00fcr das Gameplay vor.\n\nAudio\nIm Juni hat das Audio-Team den Sound im gesamten Spiel verbessert: SFX entwarf und implementierte wichtige Elemente f\u00fcr die Umgebung, Waffen und die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che, w\u00e4hrend Audio Code die Entwicklung einer innovativen Ausbreitungstechnologie abschloss, die die Art und Weise, wie sich Sound ausbreitet, neu definiert. Im Juli wird das Team die Technik f\u00fcr die Filmsequenzen verbessern.\n\nDas Dialogteam hat das Atemsystem der Charaktere f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Gesundheitszust\u00e4nde verfeinert, Fehler behoben und die Dialoge in der Kampagne organisiert. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die Untersuchung der verschiedenen Gesundheitszust\u00e4nde des Spielercharakters und wie die Atemstile das Spielerlebnis verbessern k\u00f6nnen.\n\nIm Juli h\u00e4lt das Team eine Performance-Capture-Session ab, um zahlreiche Szenen im Spiel zu erfassen. Zur Vorbereitung haben sie ein Masterdokument erstellt, in dem jeder Dialog im Spiel festgehalten wird.\n\nEngine\nIm Juni schloss das Team der Core Engine die Integration der letzten \u00c4nderungen in den Hauptentwicklungszweig ab. Es hat viel Arbeit gekostet, aber es ist dem Team gelungen, die vielen wichtigen \u00c4nderungen der letzten Monate zu stabilisieren und einzuf\u00fchren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Experimente mit einem kooperativeren Threading-Modell f\u00fcr die Ausf\u00fchrung von Physikcode durchgef\u00fchrt, was zu allgemeinen Leistungsverbesserungen f\u00fchren sollte.\n\nBei den generischen Formen wurden alle editorenseitigen Arbeiten f\u00fcr regul\u00e4re Formen abgeschlossen und liegen nun bei den K\u00fcnstlern zur R\u00fcckmeldung. Der n\u00e4chste Schritt ist die Editorunterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr mehrere Untersegmente, damit das Team komplexere Formen aus primitiven Unterformen erstellen kann.\n\nDie Systeme StarBuild, P4K v2.0 und memReplay haben verschiedene Verbesserungen und neue Funktionen erhalten, um sie f\u00fcr andere Teams bereitzustellen.\n\nDas Physikteam unterst\u00fctzte die Spielteams mit verschiedenen Fehlerkorrekturen, arbeitete an freitragenden Balken f\u00fcr den Maelstrom-Editor und untersuchte Verbesserungen am Solver f\u00fcr angetriebene Ragdolls.\n\nDann wurde eine ImGUI-Ansicht implementiert, die eine schnelle Anpassung der Simulationsparameter f\u00fcr an der Figur befestigte Kleidung erm\u00f6glicht, sodass \u00c4nderungen sofort sichtbar werden.\n\nDas Entity System Tech Team integrierte seine j\u00fcngsten Verbesserungen in den Hauptentwicklungszweig. Anschlie\u00dfend arbeiteten sie an verschiedenen Verbesserungen der Spawning-Zeit und der Kostenvisualisierung, um die Ladezeit weiter zu optimieren.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurde das asynchrone Laden von Entit\u00e4ten im Editor aktiviert, um den Startvorgang zu beschleunigen und die Effizienz zu verbessern.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nIm Bereich Gameplay wurde ein Teil des Monats damit verbracht, neue mobiGlas-Anwendungen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, darunter die Galactapedia, eine Referenz f\u00fcr Menschen, Fahrzeuge, Planeten, Systeme, Gegenst\u00e4nde und alles andere im Universum. Im Laufe des Spiels wird die Galactapedia mit den gesammelten Informationen aktualisiert.\n\nDie App \"Pers\u00f6nlicher Status\" hat jetzt eine Seite \"F\u00e4higkeiten\", auf der die F\u00e4higkeiten des Spielers\/der Spielerin aufgef\u00fchrt sind und wie sie sich verbessert haben. Au\u00dferdem gibt es eine Seite mit den Attributen, die zeigt, welche Gegenst\u00e4nde freigeschaltet wurden und wie der Fortschritt bei anderen aussieht.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem eine M\u00f6glichkeit eingef\u00fchrt, mit der die Designer eigene Schadenskarten erstellen k\u00f6nnen. Diese k\u00f6nnen auf Fahrzeuge oder Gegenst\u00e4nde angewandt werden und geben mehr Kontrolle dar\u00fcber, wie besch\u00e4digt sie mit der Zeit erscheinen.\n\nIm Anschluss an die Arbeit des letzten Monats haben die Gameplay Features die Minimap weiterentwickelt und Markierungen f\u00fcr den Spieler, NSCs, Ziele und mehr hinzugef\u00fcgt. Diese k\u00f6nnen jetzt an den Rand der Karte \"geklemmt\" werden, wenn sie sich au\u00dferhalb des Bildschirms befinden.\n\nAuch an der Charakteranpassung wurde gearbeitet und die neue Haar-Rendering-Technologie eingesetzt, mit der die Spieler\/innen die Grundfarbe und die Str\u00e4hnchen ihrer Haare \u00e4ndern k\u00f6nnen.\n\nEigenschaften (Fahrzeug)\nIm letzten Monat unterst\u00fctzte Vehicle Features verschiedene Designinitiativen in den Kapiteln von SQ42, darunter die Arbeit an den elektromagnetischen Gaswolken von The Coil. Das Team arbeitete mit VFX und Design zusammen, um verschiedene Spezialeffekte zu implementieren, damit die Spieler\/innen in und um die Gaswolken fliegen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nDas Team unterst\u00fctzte auch kleinere \u00c4nderungen an anderen Kapiteln, neue Funktionen, die es den KI-Teams erm\u00f6glichen, besondere Versatzst\u00fccke zu erstellen, und M\u00f6glichkeiten f\u00fcr TrackView, Fahrzeuge besser zu steuern.\n\nSie arbeiteten auch weiter an der Fertigstellung der Kontrollfl\u00e4chen und des neuen aerodynamischen Flugmodells, das in die normalen Mechanismen zur Steuerung von Schiff und Geschwindigkeit integriert wurde. Sie haben auch andere Umgebungseffekte in Bezug auf die Hauptmodi integriert, so dass sie jetzt in den verschiedenen Flugmodi funktionieren.\n\n\"Wir sollten jetzt hoffentlich an einem Punkt sein, an dem das neue Flugmodell spielweit aktiviert und im SQ42-Gameplay getestet werden kann. Team Fahrzeugeigenschaften\n\nVehicle Features hat im Juni auch verschiedene Bereiche der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che weiterentwickelt. Um den Spielfluss in den Levels zu unterst\u00fctzen, arbeiteten sie zusammen mit anderen Teams an einem Markierungs- und Zielsystem, das den Spielern zeigt, wohin sie gehen m\u00fcssen, welche Ziele es gibt und welche Dinge sich in ihrer Umgebung befinden. Es enth\u00e4lt auch neue Markierungen f\u00fcr Quantenziele, Scansignaturen und mehr. Diese Markierungen k\u00f6nnen je nach Spielfortschritt kontextabh\u00e4ngig ein- und ausgeschaltet werden.\n\nDas Team hat sich mit dem Schiffsausladeterminal besch\u00e4ftigt. Dabei handelt es sich um ein physisches Terminal im Idris-Hangar, an dem die Spieler\/innen ihre Schiffe anpassen k\u00f6nnen, bevor sie auf Missionen fliegen. Es wird derzeit in die verschiedenen Schiffsgegenst\u00e4nde integriert, damit sie neben den Gegenst\u00e4nden des Spielers angezeigt werden.\n\nAuch die Multifunktionsanzeigen (MFDs) wurden weiterentwickelt. Sie sind jetzt spielweit aktiviert und werden in verschiedenen Leveln getestet. Mehrere Probleme wurden behoben und das Team konzentriert sich jetzt auf einzigartige MFDs f\u00fcr das Scansystem, um Kontakte anzuzeigen und dem Spieler die M\u00f6glichkeit zu geben, Informationen \u00fcber die gescannten Gegenst\u00e4nde nachzuschlagen.\n\nAuch das allgemeine Aussehen der Fahrzeugcockpits wurde \u00fcberarbeitet. Das Team f\u00fcgte zum Beispiel neue Kamerawackler hinzu, wenn der Nachbrenner benutzt wird, den Str\u00f6mungsabriss beim Fliegen mit Aerodynamik und andere kleinere Kamerabewegungen, um das Gesamtgef\u00fchl beim Steuern eines Schiffes zu verbessern.\n\nUnd schlie\u00dflich hat Vehicle Features am Physikmodell des Schiffs gearbeitet. Das grundlegende Physikmodell funktioniert gut, aber es wurden Verbesserungen und Optimierungen vorgenommen, um das Erlebnis zu verbessern, w\u00e4hrend andere Funktionen fertiggestellt wurden.\n\nGameplay Story\nIm Juni wurden im Bereich Gameplay Story zahlreiche Szenen der Kampagne \u00fcberarbeitet und verbessert. Zwei Szenen wurden aktualisiert, um die genehmigte Sitzposition zu verwenden, in einer Szene wird nun das genehmigte Datenpad verwendet und eine weitere wurde aktualisiert, um die genehmigte Knopfh\u00f6he zu erreichen. Au\u00dferdem wurde eine Szene im ersten Kapitel um mehrere neue Ermutigungsanimationen und neue Dialoge erweitert.\n\nDas Team unterst\u00fctzte dann die breitere Entwicklungsinitiative zu Kapitel f\u00fcnf, indem es eine Charaktereinf\u00fchrung am Anfang verbesserte, um sie reaktionsschneller zu machen. Zwei verschiedene Szenen in der Mitte des Kapitels wurden mit neuen Start- und Endanimationen versehen und eine gro\u00dfe Szene am Ende des Kapitels wurde komplett \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat das Team alle Sitzaufstellungen der Br\u00fcckenoperatoren genehmigt (nur der Sitz des Fluglotsen bleibt \u00fcbrig). Dadurch wurden mehrere Szenen f\u00fcr das Cinematics- und Gameplay-Story-Team freigegeben.\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\nIm Juni hat das Planet Tech-Team seine neuesten Tools fertiggestellt und am neuen Wassersystem gearbeitet. Wasserwellen k\u00f6nnen jetzt \u00fcber Regionsgrenzen hinweg simuliert werden, und weitere \u00dcberarbeitungen der Rendercode-Integration mit den atmosph\u00e4rischen \u00dcberg\u00e4ngen des Planeten machten den Prozess noch reibungsloser. Quantenhindernisse f\u00fcr generische Formen wurden ebenfalls physisch angepasst und an das Engine-Team zur Integration \u00fcbergeben.\n\nDas Grafikteam verbrachte einen Teil des Monats mit der Behebung von Fehlern, der Verbesserung des Render-Threads und der Entwicklung des kommenden Systems zur zeitlichen Hochskalierung. F\u00fcr die globale Beleuchtung ist ein Raytracing-Prototyp in Arbeit, und es wurde mit der Arbeit an Screen-Space-Probes begonnen. Die Schatten im Bildschirmraum sind jetzt konsistenter und die Probleme mit dem Streaming der Leinwanddekore wurden behoben.\n\nBei Gen12 und Vulkan wurden au\u00dferdem verschiedene Fehler behoben, die sich auf die Rendering- und Streamingleistung auswirkten. Die Lebensdauer der GPU-Ressourcen wurde neu strukturiert und WAW-Hazards f\u00fcr die verz\u00f6gerte Ausf\u00fchrung von RenderGraph werden nun effizienter behandelt.\n\nDie erste Iteration des auf MeshSetup und CGAs basierenden Entity-Spawnings wurde eingereicht, das f\u00fcr Maelstrom erforderlich ist.\n\nZusammen mit UI Tech und anderen SQ42-Teams hat Graphics die Leistung und visuelle Qualit\u00e4t der Gebietskarte verbessert. Die Innenraum- und FPS-Minikarten verwenden jetzt die Funktion Render Layers, die jetzt auf CGA-Verbindungen, Haut und CGF-Anh\u00e4nge angewendet werden kann. Fehlerhafte UI-Randf\u00e4lle wurden ebenfalls behoben und skalieren nun korrekt mit der Belichtung der Szene.\n\nDas VFX-Team hat DataForge die Unterst\u00fctzung von Partikelbibliotheksgruppen erm\u00f6glicht, um sich auf die bevorstehenden \u00c4nderungen an Waffeneffekt-Setups vorzubereiten.\n\nEin Absturz, der sich auf feuerbezogene Kindeffekte auswirkte, wurde behoben und ein entit\u00e4tsweiter Verbrennungszustand kann nun angewendet werden, der Schmutzparameter und die Objekttemperatur verwendet, um Schaden und Gl\u00fchen zu bestimmen; das Gl\u00fchen verwendet einen bestimmten Shader aus den permanenten Effekten, um spielweite Konsistenz zu gew\u00e4hrleisten.\n\nAuch die Blitze wurden verbessert. Zum Beispiel k\u00f6nnen Blitzkaskaden mit einem neuen Controller zeitlich gesteuert werden und Schiffsschilde werden jetzt ausgel\u00f6st, wenn sie von Blitzen getroffen werden.\n\nLeveldesign\nIm Juni hat das Leveldesign einen weiteren gro\u00dfen Schritt in Richtung des Shubin Archon in Kapitel f\u00fcnf gemacht. Dies ist der gr\u00f6\u00dfte begehbare Level des Teams, der zwei NSC-F\u00fchrer und zahlreiche Hintergrundszenen und NSCs enth\u00e4lt.\n\n\"Es war eine gro\u00dfe Herausforderung, ihn zu implementieren und zu pflegen, aber wir sind sehr zufrieden damit, wo wir jetzt stehen.\" Level Design Team\n\nSie konzentrierten sich auch weiterhin auf die Zwischenszenen in Stanton und Krugeri. So haben sie zum Beispiel den medizinischen Triage-Bereich im Hangar der Krugeri komplett \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nNarrative\nIm letzten Monat hat Narrative eng mit Core Gameplay Design und Audio an den Wildlines der Spieler gearbeitet, die im gesamten Spiel verwendet werden, von allgemeinen Antworten bis hin zu zus\u00e4tzlicher Hilfe bei R\u00e4tseln. Diese Arbeit wurde leicht beschleunigt, da sich das Team darauf vorbereitete, die verbleibenden Spielerlinien in einem bevorstehenden Dreh aufzunehmen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem stimmte sich das Team weiterhin mit den Leveldesignern ab, um die Skripte auf der Grundlage des Feedbacks aus den Platzhalteraufnahmen zu verfeinern. Sobald die Skripte geschrieben waren, nahmen sie neue Platzhalterversionen auf, damit sie den Spielfluss bei zuk\u00fcnftigen \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungen erleben k\u00f6nnen.\n\nW\u00e4hrend sich die Skripte weiter verfestigten, erweiterte das Team seine Aufgaben, um die verschiedenen Textanforderungen des Spiels zu erf\u00fcllen. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Erstellung der Version der Galactapedia f\u00fcr das Spiel (wobei festgelegt wurde, welche Eintr\u00e4ge aus der aktuellen Liste \u00fcbernommen und welche speziell f\u00fcr SQ42 erstellt werden), verschiedene Sammelobjekte, Spielerf\u00e4higkeiten und Missionsbewertungen. Sobald das Team die verbleibenden erz\u00e4hlerischen und spielerischen Inhalte erfasst hat, wird es sich mehr auf diese Textanforderungen und andere W\u00fcnsche konzentrieren, einschlie\u00dflich Umgebungsmeldungen und Fluff-Screens, die im Spiel erscheinen werden, um die Geschichte weiter zu erz\u00e4hlen.\n\nF&E\nIm Juni wurde die Arbeit am atmosph\u00e4rischen und volumetrischen Wolkenrendering fortgesetzt. Transmissionsprofile und ihre Filterketten wurden optimiert und verbessert, um Rauschen und Artefakte in den Raymarch-Ergebnissen zu reduzieren. Weitere Forschungen betrafen das zeitliche Upsampling dieser Ergebnisse, um einen stabilen und detaillierten Frame mit voller Aufl\u00f6sung zu erzeugen, der dann in eine Szene eingef\u00fcgt werden kann.\n\nTech Animation\nIm Juni integrierte Tech Animation die lang erwarteten \u00c4nderungen am DNA-System. Dies erm\u00f6glicht neue Kopf-Assets und bietet eine Pipeline, die neue Wege zur Erstellung und Anpassung neuer Spielinhalte er\u00f6ffnet.\n\nDas Team begann mit neuen Initiativen, w\u00e4hrend es auf weitere Head Art wartet. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Aktualisierung der Codebasis der Maya-Pipeline von Python 2.7 auf 3.7 und ihre gr\u00fcndliche Pr\u00fcfung. Dies wurde im Juni f\u00fcr die Nutzer\/innen freigegeben, und das Team arbeitet derzeit an den letzten Fehlern.\n\nVFX\nNeben der \u00fcblichen Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Drehorte und filmische Sequenzen untersuchte VFX die Shader-Anforderungen f\u00fcr die Feuerausbreitung. Code-m\u00e4\u00dfig ist das Feuerausbreitungssystem schon eine Weile in Arbeit, aber jetzt ist es so weit, dass die VFX-K\u00fcnstler mit Environment Art zusammenarbeiten k\u00f6nnen, um zu entscheiden, wie die verschiedenen Orte aussehen sollen, wenn sie brennen und ausgebrannt sind.\n\nAuch f\u00fcr verschiedene Blitzeffekte wurden Verbesserungen und Optimierungen vorgenommen.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT WIEDER...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJune 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 07:05:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to June\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including relaxation activities, water tech, and electromagnetic gas clouds.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, the AI Content team continued working on various behaviors. These ranged from NPC behaviors during downtime and rest (eating, exercising, sleeping, etc.) to more official and job-focused behaviors from members of the Stanton and aboard Shubin station. Dynamic conversations were also introduced among the deck crew where they discuss their work to create a more cohesive atmosphere. NPCs were also implemented in several key areas to help flesh out and fill the environments, while various locomotions were also added to these NPCs to make movement and crowds feel more realistic. These ranged from security guards on tram stops, to janitors on Shubin, to 'hawker' kisok-based vendors that can interact with players and NPCs.\n\nFor the Fight Club, speed animations were added for crowd spectators alongside high-quality fight animations.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, the team worked on reactions to restrained AI, which enables players to use hand and leg restraints to prevent a character from moving. This builds on the healing and waking of downed and unconscious AI. As restraining can work in tandem with other actor statuses, there were numerous cases to deal with, including the AI being awake, unconscious, or bleeding out whilst restrained.\n\nThe team then moved on to a gunfight section within the campaign. In this situation, the AI needs to choose cover opposite the player in a circular arena. This required a bespoke TPS query to provide the cover and special functionality to recognize when to move to a new position.\n\nThey also continued to polish and iterate on a wide range of other functionalities to improve overall quality, including melee attacks, buddy AI, grenade throwing, grenade reactions, and attack and defend areas.\n\nOn the animation side, the team continued to iterate on full animation sets to implement the different combat styles employed by the game\u2019s various factions.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech finalized their work on dynamic pathfinding regeneration. As mentioned in previous reports, this feature allows dynamic paths to detect when a navigation mesh is modified and check whether it\u2019s still valid or if a new path request is needed. When a new dynamic path is requested, the pathing component creates and stores navigation anchors. These anchors notify the pathing component each time the mesh changes, which then checks through navigation raycasts to see if the path is still valid. If not, the last part of the path is recomputed.\n\nNext, the team continued developing a feature to allow NPCs to enter and exit a ship\u2019s airlock from EVA. For this, they had to consider cases when a ship or space station is moving or slightly rotating. They\u2019re currently working on a scenario for transitioning from a ship with gravity to zero-g by vaulting over a ledge.\n\nFor tools, AI Tech continued improving and extending functionality for Apollo Subsumption, including adding two new windows for the task-archetypes and variable-type editors. This will allow the team to better visualize and modify archetypes and variables.\n\nThe other AI tool, the usable group coordinator, received improvements too. This included a minor flow refactor to reduce the performance impact from bad setups and to more clearly notify the designers what\u2019s wrong.\n\nLast month, AI Tech also supported existing features and the upcoming release builds. For navigation links, they created new flowgraph nodes that allow the designers to disable and re-enable navigation links for a platform or object container. For example, this will enable NPCs to use moving platforms.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nAI\u2019s Vehicle Feature team spent the month finalizing the new combat AI, enabling it throughout SQ42. This rework has been in development for a while and improves the overall flight combat in the game.\n\nThe team are now tuning, tweaking, and improving the combat experience.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll be soon taking a closer look at every single individual combat encounter and fine-tuning them all to feel great.\u201d AI Vehicle Features\n\nAnimation\nLast month, Animation began a deep dive into every parent asset in the game to cull broken, not-needed, and poorly performing animations.\n\nThey continued to work on zero-g and takedowns, with recent work on heavy denials and sedative takedowns. They also progressed with animations for personal carriers, animals, the janitor behavior, crowds cheering, and player revival by AI. Support was given to scenes across various chapters and data from a recent mo-cap session was processed. Work on malfunctions and new mobiGlas animations progressed. The healing and un-restraining flow now works properly too.\n\nOn the Facial side, the team worked on idle faces for the various states of the AI, including sick, punk, severe pain, tired, scared, and drunk.\n\n\u201cThis will improve the AI considerably, as we believe the moment you see a person\u2019s face you naturally look at it, instead of when that face is hidden by a helmet, you end up looking at the full body. We have also been working on facial animations for many narrative scenes.\u201d Animation Team\n\nRegarding mo-cap, the team prepared for an upcoming narrative shoot along with one intended to capture specific character actions and pickups. They also prepared for several gameplay mini-captures.\n\nAudio\nJune saw the Audio team enhancing sounds across the game; SFX designed and implemented essential assets for ambience, weapons, and UI, while Audio Code finished developing cutting-edge propagation tech to redefine how sound travels. July will see them move onto cinematics tech improvements.\n\nThe Dialogue team refined the character-breathing system for different health states, fixing bugs and organizing dialogue across the campaign. This also involved investigating the various health states of the player character and how breathing styles can elevate the experience.\n\nIn July, the team are holding a performance-capture session to cover numerous scenes in the game. In preparation, they created a master document to track every piece of dialogue implemented in the game.\n\nEngine\nIn June, the Core Engine team finished integrating the latest changes into the main development branch. This took a significant effort, but the team managed to stabilize and roll out the many major rewrites made over the past few months.\n\nAdditionally, experiments were done on a more cooperative threading model to execute physics code, which should deliver general performance improvements.\n\nFor generic shapes, all editor-side work for regular shapes was finished and is now with the artists for feedback. The next stage is editor support for multiple sub-segments to allow the team to build more complex shapes out of primitive sub-shapes.\n\nThe StarBuild, P4K v2.0, and memReplay systems received various improvements and new features in preparation for them rolling out to other teams.\n\nThe Physics team supported the game teams with various bug fixes, progressed with cantilever beams for the Maelstrom editor, and investigated solver improvements for driven ragdolls.\n\nAn ImGUI view was then implemented to allow rapid tweaking of simulation parameters for character-attached cloth so that changes become immediately visible.\n\nThe Entity System Tech team integrated their recent improvements into the main development branch. They then worked on various spawning-time improvements and cost visualizations to allow for further guided loading-time optimization.\n\nFinally, async entity loading was enabled in the editor for faster startup and improved efficiency.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nGameplay features spent part of the month adding new mobiGlas applications, including the Galactapedia, which is a reference for people, vehicles, planets, systems, items, and everything else in the universe. As players progress, the Galactapedia will be updated with the information gathered.\n\nThe Personal Status app now has a Skills page, detailing the player\u2019s abilities and how they have improved. It also includes an Attributes page, detailing what items have been unlocked and how progress is going on others.\n\nThe team also implemented a way for the designers to create custom damage maps. These can be applied to vehicles or items, giving more control over how damaged they appear over time.\n\nFollowing last month\u2019s work, Gameplay Features further progressed with the minimap, adding markers for the player, NPCs, objectives, and more. These can now be \u201cclamped\u201d to the edge of the map if they\u2019re offscreen.\n\nAdditional work was done on the character customizer too, exposing it to the new hair-rendering tech that allows players to change their hair\u2019s base color and highlights.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, Vehicle Features supported various design initiatives across SQ42\u2019s chapters, including work on The Coil\u2019s electromagnetic gas clouds. The team worked alongside VFX and Design to implement various special effects to support the player's experience of flying into and around the gas clouds.\n\nThe team also supported smaller changes to other chapters, new features to enable the AI teams to create special set pieces, and ways for TrackView to control vehicles better.\n\nThey also continued to finalize Control Surfaces and the new aerodynamic flight model, which were integrated into the normal ship throttle and speed-control mechanisms. They also integrated other environmental effects relating to Master Modes so they now work across the different flight modes.\n\n\u201cWe should hopefully be at a point now where the new flight model can be enabled game wide and tested in situ in SQ42 gameplay.\u201d Vehicle Features Team\n\nVehicle Features further developed various UI areas in June too. To help with the flow of levels, they worked with other teams on a markers-and-objectives system that shows players where to go, what destinations exist, and what things are around them. It also includes new markers for quantum destinations, scanning signatures, and more. These markers can contextually enable and disable depending on progress in the game.\n\nThe team progressed with the ship-loadout terminal. This is a physical terminal in the Idris hangar that allows players to customize their ships before flying out on missions. It\u2019s currently being integrated with the various ship items so they show up alongside the player\u2019s items.\n\nMulti-function displays (MFDs) also progressed. They\u2019re currently enabled game-wide and are being tested in various levels. Several issues were fixed and the team is now focusing on unique MFDs for the scanning system to show contacts and allow the player to look up information about the things they\u2019ve scanned.\n\nFocus was also given to the general look and feel of vehicle cockpits. For example, the team added new camera shakes when using the afterburner, stalling when flying with aerodynamics, and other smaller camera movements to improve the overall feel of piloting a ship.\n\nLastly, Vehicle Features worked on the boat physics model. The core physics model works well, though improvements and tweaks were made to improve the experience as other features were completed.\n\nGameplay Story\nJune saw Gameplay Story continue to maintain and improve a large number of scenes across the campaign. Two scenes were updated to use the approved seated pose, one will now utilize the approved datapad, and another was updated to match the approved button height. Alongside this, a scene in chapter one was expanded with several new encouragement animations and new dialogue.\n\nThe team then supported the wider development initiative on chapter five, improving a character introduction at the beginning to make it more responsive. New start and end animations were added to two different scenes in the middle of the chapter, and a full polish was completed for a large scene at the end.\n\nAlongside this, the team got all of the bridge-operator seat setups approved (just the air-traffic controller's seat remains). This unblocked several scenes for the Cinematics and wider Gameplay Story team.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nJune saw the Planet Tech team wrapping up their latest tools and working on the new water system. Water ripples can now be simulated across region borders, and further reworks to rendercode integrations with planetary atmospheric passes made the process smoother. Quantum obstacles for Generic Shapes were also physicalized and passed to the Engine team for integration.\n\nThe Graphics team spent part of the month fixing bugs, improving the render thread, and developing the upcoming temporal-upscaling system. For global illumination, a ray-tracing prototype is now in progress, and work began on screen-space probes. Screen-space shadows are now more consistent, and canvas-decal streaming issues were resolved.\n\nGen12 and Vulkan also received various bug fixes that impacted rendering and streaming performance. The GPU resource lifetime was restructured, and WAW hazards for RenderGraph deferred execution are handled more efficiently too.\n\nThe first iteration of entity spawning based on MeshSetup and CGAs was submitted, which is required for Maelstrom.\n\nAlongside UI Tech and other SQ42 teams, Graphics improved the performance and visual quality of the area map. The interior and FPS mini-maps now use the Render Layers feature, which can now be applied to CGA joints, skin, and CGF attachments. Incorrect UI edge cases were also resolved and now scale correctly with scene exposure.\n\nThe VFX team enabled DataForge to support particle library groups in preparation for the upcoming changes to weapon-effect setups.\n\nA crash impacting fire-related child effects was fixed, and an entity-wide burn state can now be applied that uses dirt parameters and object temperature to determine damage and glow; glow uses a specific shader from permanent effects for game-wide consistency.\n\nLightning was also improved. For example, lightning cascades can be timed with a new controller and ship shields now trigger when struck by lightning.\n\nLevel Design\nJune saw Level Design make another significant push on chapter five\u2019s Shubin Archon content. This is the team\u2019s largest walk-and-talk level, featuring two NPC guides and numerous background scenes and NPCs.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a huge challenge to implement and another maintaining it, but we\u2019re very pleased with where we are at with it now.\u201d Level Design Team\n\nThey also continued to focus on Stanton and Krugeri interstitial scenes. For example, they made a full pass on an emergency medical triage area in the Krugeri\u2019s hangar.\n\nNarrative\nLast month, Narrative worked closely with Core Gameplay Design and Audio on player wildlines that will be used throughout the game, covering everything from generic responses to providing additional assistance during puzzles. This work was slightly accelerated as the team prepared to capture the remaining player lines in an upcoming shoot.\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to sync with the level designers to refine scripts based on feedback from placeholder audio. Once written, they recorded new placeholder versions so they can experience the flow in future reviews.\n\nAs the scripts continue to solidify, the team expanded tasks to begin addressing the various text needs of the game. This included outlining the game\u2019s version of the Galactapedia (determining which entries will be included from the current list and which will be crafted specifically for SQ42), various collectibles, player skills, and mission performance reviews. Once the team has finished capturing the remaining narrative and gameplay content, they\u2019ll focus more on these text requirements and other requests, including environmental messages and fluff screens that will appear throughout the game to provide additional storytelling.\n\nR&D\nIn June, work on atmospheric and volumetric cloud rendering continued. Transmittance profiles and their filter chains were optimized and improved to reduce noise and artifacts in raymarch results. Further research went into the temporal upsampling of those results to produce a stable and detailed full-resolution frame that can then be composited into a scene.\n\nTech Animation\nJune saw Tech Animation integrate their long-awaiting changes to the DNA system. This enables new head assets and provides a pipeline that will open new ways to author and customize new game content.\n\nThe team then began new initiatives while they wait for further head art. This included updating the Maya pipeline codebase from Python 2.7 to 3.7 and thoroughly testing it. This was released to the user base in June, with the team currently working through the final bugs.\n\nVFX\nAside from the usual support for locations and cinematic sequences, VFX investigated shader requirements for fire propagation. Code-wise, the fire-propagation system has been in progress for a while, but it has now reached the point where the VFX artists can work with Environment Art to decide how various locations should look when burning and burned out.\n\nImprovements and optimizations were also made for various lightning effects.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2023-07-12T18:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"2 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 19:05:57","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":19372,"next_id":19374}}