{"data":{"id":19404,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: July 2023","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/19404-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-July-2023","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19404","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19404","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\nJuly 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 08:02:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to July\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including ship UI, weapon aiming, and fire propagation.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content made a strategic decision to concentrate resources on a single location, which brought several benefits; one being a more iterative review process, as they now meet daily with leadership and receive detailed feedback, allowing them to raise the quality bar to a shippable level. Additionally, this fostered greater teamwork and knowledge sharing among team members, expanding developer skillsets.\n\nThey also progressed with the hangar and mess hall locations. In the hangar, they introduced an overseer behavior that underpins supervisors for the deck crew, ordinance officers, and fuelers. These supervisors dynamically interact with their colleagues using datapads and oversee their work, similar to a \u2018middle manager\u2019 role. For the landing officer, they drew inspiration from aircraft-carrier takeoff-and-landing videos to create realistic deck crew actions.\n\nIn the mess hall, scripted AI was added alongside random systemic interactions. This allows the team to implement more interesting actions that might be challenging to achieve with a solely systematic approach. For example, a new addition sees NPCs watch and react to a TV show.\n\nLooking ahead, the team will shortly move on to various ship interior locations.\n\nAI (Features)\nIn July, AI Features improved the quality of various behaviors, including unrestraining. For example, AI can now wake up while restrained and call out to others to come and rescue them.\n\nThey also developed interfaces and behaviors for AI-driven vehicles equipped with specific radar gadgets. This enables the AI to locate enemies when they hide or move out of sight.\n\nWork continued on close-combat encounters to ensure that the AI locomotion performance looks good, which included integrating new performance capture animations. Environmental searches were also improved to allow NPCs to evaluate their environment and then attempt to flank the target using cover locations. The team are currently improving the combat behavior that allows NPCs to use MedPens to heal themselves in combat.\n\nAI Features continued to implement buddy AI, including a behavior that enables the buddy to crouch and locomote between cover. Buddies now also have improved reviving, acknowledging when the player is downed or unconscious.\n\nOn the animation side, polish was done on a variety of features, including grenade throwing, healing, unrestraining, crouched sharp turns, and weapon reloads.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech finalized work to allow NPCs to transition between EVA and environments with gravity. This required an update to the usables code, including exposing it to enter and exit location information. Now, NPCs can enter and exit ships through airlocks or hatches by vaulting over ledges. The team also implemented simple behaviors and assignments for entering and exiting ships, which compute a path to a location and utilize the most suitable usable to finish the transition.\n\nOn the navigation-system side, AI Tech upgraded navigation links to connect two volumes from different zones, which is needed for moving platforms. The previous implementation only allowed links between parent and child zones rather than between two unrelated zones. Further optimizations and improvements were made for navigation-mesh raycasts too.\n\nAI Tech also picked up the ongoing work on boids. They\u2019re currently working on 2D boids agents, such as rodents, that will move across terrain within the confines of the navigation mesh. They\u2019re also adding constraints to avoid navigation-mesh edges to ensure the boids stay inside navigable areas. Next, they\u2019ll look into boids agents playing animations while moving or idling.\n\nThe Subsumption editor received numerous improvements, including a variable-type editor, the ability to copy\/paste states while editing a mastergraph, improved views of how mastergraph transitions are presented, an improved activity view for available sub-activities and functions, and a validation panel that presents errors and warning when loading and saving files.\n\nVarious features and AI systems received improvements too. For the usable-group coordinator, designers can now specify that a group of NPCs should synchronize when transitioning from one group of usables to another. For NPCs pushing trolleys, the team optimized the PID controller and adjusted the default parameters to stabilize quicker after turning on a path.\n\nFor NPC perception of audio stimuli, AI Tech began using new functionality exposed by the Audio team, which will utilize the room system to understand if an audio event should be received.\n\nAI (Vehicles)\nVehicle AI focused on supporting Level Design throughout July; vehicle AI has a significant impact on level design, especially for flight chapters, so time was spent looking into issues, supporting designers, and adding new features.\n\nFurther work was done to integrate the new vehicle aiming system into AI. NPC pilots will make use of the new system just like players, which has resulted in significantly improved AI accuracy. Though this requires balancing, they now have much more control than before.\n\nImprovements and changes were made to atmospheric flight. Now, when in-atmosphere, AI fly with control surfaces and dogfighting reverts to a more traditional \u201cget-on-your-six\u201d style of combat. As part of this, the team wanted to give players more opportunities to get behind the AI, so now, enemies occasionally make mistakes and break away, leaving windows they didn\u2019t before. This has resulted in a far more enjoyable experience.\n\nAnimation\nLast month, the Animation team moved from alpha to beta work. This involved improving the visual results of reloads and takedowns as well as basic idles for weapons and knives.\n\nThe team continued working on background and systemic AI, taking a larger role in driving visual fidelity. They also kicked off reload animations for enemy spec-ops weapon types and began implementing two high-intensity combat fights.\n\nThey\u2019re currently making updates to player-prone animations and adding an increasing number of player interactions to improve immersion in specific environments.\n\nOn the facial side, the team continued developing final-quality facial animations for various cinematic scenes alongside supporting new incoming lines for combat and social AI.\n\nSupport is also ongoing for two mo-cap shoots: one for narrative requirements and another for ad-hoc social and combat AI needs.\n\nAudio\nAudio continued their ongoing task of tagging generic animations with new Foley sound effects. This will add to immersion game-wide, including non-gameplay scenes (such as cinematics) where generic animations are reused.\n\nThe team also designed and implemented new weapon sound effects; a significant step to improving the sound across all FPS features. Several gadgets received their initial audio pass in pursuit of having sound on all interactable devices across the campaign too.\n\nAudio also assessed the workload for the planned flight experience improvements, identifying areas of tech that need developing or improving. Alongside this, the Technical Sound team will soon begin writing up a new vibration system to amplify the tension and immersion of dogfights and large space battles to greatly improve the overall flight experience.\n\nTime was spent reviewing all existing ambiance work in preparation for the next stage of development; currently, all base ambiance is implemented, which will be refined with smaller, nuanced details. They also completed the sound design for the large turrets that players can use during an early portion of the game. The cannon effects were redesigned to sound more powerful and \u201cbeefier,\u201d while the Gatling turrets received a new barrel spin effect.\n\nFinally for Audio, the Dialogue team spent time on set shooting a selection of scenes and mastering in-game dialogue.\n\nEngine\nThe Core Engine team progressed with the development of StarBuild, the new in-house code-build system that will replace WAF; last month, they fixed issues and implemented improvements based on feedback from wider dev use.\n\nFor MemReplay 2.0, the team introduced VirtualMemoryAreas as a concept to the memory allocation system, which will better track OS committed memory and provide an improved visualization of sub-allocations.\n\nProgress was then made on removing the remaining \u2018MapAndWrite\u2019 discard calls in the renderer in preparation for the new Vulkan backend. They also reworked the game-launcher code structure to reduce code duplications and enable Linux-based headless clients, which will help with automatic testing.\n\nThe Physics team continued helping the game teams fix various physics-related bugs in the game code. They also updated the new cloth system and Maelstrom, and began improving active and animated ragdolls.\n\nThe Entity System team primarily supported various technical initiatives, including RaStar and the Resource Network. This involved exploring ways to create and limit generated locations to provide a rich experience without negatively impacting performance.\n\nFinally, they provided bug fixes for the recently enabled 'async editor loading,' and are currently adding more safety checks for correct entity access.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nJuly saw work begin on the in-game simpod, where players can load into different simulations to practice their skills.\n\n\u201cThis is a fairly involved process, where we need to teleport the player into a new environment, change their loadout and status, change the game mode and game rules, and restore everything back again when the simulation has finished. It\u2019s not like the Matrix - if you die in the simulation, you don\u2019t die in the real world.\u201d Gameplay Features\n\nElsewhere, a pass was done on formation flying based on feedback from the ongoing mission reviews. This led to various changes, including how players join the formation, the way it flies to match the orientation of the leader, and numerous UI improvements.\n\nProgress was also made on the mini-map, including culling markers outside of the camera view and clipping important markers to the view edge. New markers for dangerous objects, such as grenades and missiles, were added to both the mini-map and Starmap too.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, the Vehicle Features team worked alongside the Level Design teams to close out various chapters and improve how the game plays and feels.\n\nOne of these key areas is the vehicle aiming and gunnery system. As part of this, the team explored options to make aiming more challenging, which is partially driven by the slightly overpowered auto-gimbal system. New aiming modes, dynamic zooming on targets, and other elements will make the combat experience more engaging.\n\nControl surfaces was finalized last month, with the team making UI changes to show additional information, including stall speed, selected mode, and thruster and control surface. Further control options will be considered following playtesting.\n\nVehicle Features also began supporting the Physics teams with physical damage tech, which requires a lot of lower-level vehicle-system refactors. This will update vehicles to use much more modern systems in the engine and work far better with physical damage and other recent features.\n\nJuly\u2019s work on multi-function displays (MFDs) focused on scanning. This is by far the most complex MFD screen, showing information from the scanned target and allowing players to find out about its internal components by utilizing a deeper scan. This is now working as intended.\n\nTurret seats are currently being converted to use the new MFD system. Turrets also have a modified version of the vehicle self-status MFD, which shows more turret-relevant information.\n\nAnother smaller UI element worked on was rearm and refuel terminal located at some landing pads. This required a few new UI tech elements, which were resolved.\n\nLastly, the vehicle loadout terminal is now largely functional, allowing players to see all the items available in their profile and equip them onto their ships in the Idris\u2019 hangar. Vehicle Features are currently working with the UI team to finalize how this terminal will look.\n\nGameplay Story\nAt the start of July, Gameplay Story completed the setup for the air-traffic controller (ATC) operator seat. They followed this by updating all their scenes that involve operator seats to work with the approved metrics.\n\n\u201cThis was quite a big undertaking but it was great to see so many scenes that have been blocked for a long time finally get to a finished state.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nAlongside this, they did an implementation pass for a scene in chapter 12 and used new mo-cap to update the start of a scene in chapter 14.\n\nRecently, Gameplay Features joined a large strike team to review and improve animations on the Idris. Last month, this involved creating new TrackViews for deck crew entering the Gladius' cockpit, checking the Gatling gun, and testing the main thrusters.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nSeveral new features were added to the Global Illumination system last month, including the initial implementation of temporal smoothing for screen space probes, which will produce more stable results at a lower cost. G-buffer support was also added to environment probes to provide a cheap scene representation for secondary light bounces. In addition, new debug modes were added alongside a new mechanism to gather lights for the GI system.\n\nA basic implementation of Temporal Super Resolution was completed, which will continue to receive fixes and improvements as it\u2019s integrated into the graphics engine.\n\nAMD\u2019s memory allocation API was integrated into the Vulkan backend, improving the system\u2019s stability, streaming speeds, and buffer read times. A reduction in streaming\/rendering dependencies has improved performance, and new parameters will allow the devs to modify the RenderGraph\u2019s ShaderStage and ownership state. These features were added alongside ongoing bug fixes to visual regression tests with a focus on the render-to-texture system.\n\nAs part of ongoing UI refinements and unifications, the silhouette\/highlight feature is currently being improved with a softer and brighter outer glow. The mini-map also received a ping effect, which will blink around objectives for improved in-game navigation.\n\nThe Feature team is working to bring the new unified water shader to the game, adding details such as puddles that splash on impact and fixing collision-detection issues on large water volumes. A new system to manage water simulations is also in progress that will activate regions upon collision, deactivate them when they have settled, and constantly monitor and protect performance by limiting active simulations. Meanwhile, a new hash-map system for allocating water buffer regions and large surface-area-friendly water volumes is actively being worked on so the new unified WaterBuffer system can be enabled by default.\n\nThe WorldBuilder system saw a variety of improvements last month, including a major refactor to the high-level logic that runs background jobs, which should significantly reduce latency, avoid stalls, and simplify the code. In addition, planet ocean patches no longer render in duplicates, and the planet streaming system was fixed for Gen12.\n\nThe VFX Programming team fixed issues impacting damage maps; attached objects now correctly update their damage maps and an issue causing unexpected data to appear in snapshots is being investigated. For VFX-specific work, an issue preventing grouped child effects from spawning correctly was addressed, and bugs on separator tags and external referencing were fixed.\n\nMultiple Squadron 42-specific issues were resolved too, such as gas-cloud lightning problems, inconsistent damage maps, and a crash in chapter seven. In addition, planet effects now use a LOD cull to prevent unnecessary simulation when an object is out of bounds, and the team added functionality to allow plasma ammunition to attach to characters.\n\nLevel Design\nLevel Design\u2019s main focus throughout July was interstitials, including bug fixing and maintenance. With all of the team\u2019s scene content now in-game, they moved on to ensuring scenes reach the expected quality threshold and addressing specific details. For example, \u2018Are characters in their correct outfits, are they aligned to the environment\/props, do the interrupt\/rejoin points work as intended, are they head tracking, do they work from various approach angles?\u2019\n\nThis significant undertaking requires working closely with the Cinematics, Gameplay Story, and Character teams to iron out various issues.\n\nOutside of scenes, progress was made on fail states. For example, punching a colleague will see players taken to the brig and getting a dressing down from a superior. Work continued on save and checkpoints too.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative\u2019s focus in July was preparing for the two upcoming performance-capture shoots. Dialogue is used to support so many gameplay features that there have been a lot of recent reviews to ensure that the tutorials, instructions, and help that the various characters provide are in alignment with the gameplay experience. The team also identified several dialogue triggers that occur more frequently than initially estimated, so they went back to capture more line variants so that players won\u2019t have to hear the same audio quite as frequently.\n\n\u201cThese recording sessions also mean that much of the team\u2019s placeholder dialogue will soon be replaced by the actual performances. People across the studio are making sure to enjoy these inspired temporary performances by fellow team members while they still can.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nAdditionally, the team supported localization, assisting with subtitle validation. This process will be ongoing as some of the more recently captured audio still needs to go through the pipeline. It\u2019s important that the actual audio recordings are validated to the script to ensure that the subtitles are as accurate as possible, as often during the recording process, actors will slightly adjust lines to make them sound more natural.\n\nResearch & Development\nIn July, further updates were made to atmosphere and volumetric cloud rendering. Guided sampling used in the cloud raymarcher was updated based on last month's improvements to transmittance profiles. The profiles themselves received additional filtering (stochastic resampling) to reduce occasional block artifacts due to profile reuse. Moreover, the temporal render mode currently being developed for atmosphere and volumetric clouds was switched to a low discrepancy-based sequence of sample offsets that are used to set up rays for raymarching over time. Based on recent research publications, cloud shadow maps can now be stochastically filtered, which considerably improves performance and render quality. The new temporal render mode will use the stochastic texture filter by default.\n\nUI\nJuly saw the UI team iterating on display layouts for Squadron 42\u2019s flyable vehicles to ensure they all look and feel unique but retain the ease of use built on throughout the project. The concepts for the second main vehicle in the game are now signed off and ready to add, and UI are working closely with the vehicle artists on the cockpit for the third.\n\nThe MultiTool UI was also updated to make it much simpler and cleaner, while improvements were made to the AR markers and health widget. UI also updated several interaction menus and continued developing one of the key 3D displays in the game.\n\nThe Core Technology team improved Building Blocks\u2019 runtime performance, as the recent addition of new UI assets led to an increase in size and complexity. This involved coding more aggressive solutions for skipping hierarchy section updates, which led to a reduced CPU footprint and significant performance gains.\n\nThe team also continued adding new features to Bindings and Building Blocks, including a color picker, pagination widget, and stepped lines for the designers.\n\nFinally, UI worked alongside Graphics to develop a new internal map system to help players navigate the game\u2019s complex cities, planets, and capital ships.\n\n\"This will be a real game changer for players and we're really excited by its progress.\"\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team continued to focus on fire propagation. With the shader improvements from the previous month adding greatly to overall visual quality, the artists created new fire particles (including looping fire texture sequences) to work in harmony with the shaders.\n\n\u201cThe results, though still work-in-progress, are very encouraging!\u201d VFX Team\n\nFurther improvements were also made to gas-cloud lightning effects, including a new option to allow lightning to follow a moving vehicle.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nJuli 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 08:02:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO-Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht f\u00fcr Squadron 42 im Juli. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich Schiffs-UI, Waffenzielen und Feuerausbreitung.\n\nWir danken euch f\u00fcr eure anhaltende Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Inhalt)\nIm letzten Monat hat AI Content die strategische Entscheidung getroffen, die Ressourcen an einem einzigen Standort zu konzentrieren, was mehrere Vorteile mit sich brachte. Einer davon ist ein iterativerer \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungsprozess, da sie sich nun t\u00e4glich mit der Leitung treffen und detailliertes Feedback erhalten, wodurch sie die Qualit\u00e4tsmesslatte auf ein versandf\u00e4higes Niveau anheben k\u00f6nnen. Au\u00dferdem f\u00f6rderte dies die Teamarbeit und den Wissensaustausch zwischen den Teammitgliedern und erweiterte die F\u00e4higkeiten der Entwickler.\n\nAuch im Hangar und in der Kantine wurden Fortschritte erzielt. Im Hangar wurde ein Aufseherverhalten eingef\u00fchrt, das die Aufseher f\u00fcr die Decksbesatzung, die Ordnungsh\u00fcter und die Tanker unterst\u00fctzt. Diese Aufseher interagieren dynamisch mit ihren Kollegen \u00fcber Datenpads und beaufsichtigen ihre Arbeit, \u00e4hnlich wie ein \"mittlerer Manager\". F\u00fcr den Landeoffizier haben sie sich von Videos \u00fcber das Starten und Landen von Flugzeugtr\u00e4gern inspirieren lassen, um realistische Aktionen der Decksbesatzung zu erstellen.\n\nIn der Kantine wurde eine geskriptete KI neben zuf\u00e4lligen systemischen Interaktionen eingebaut. So kann das Team interessantere Aktionen umsetzen, die mit einem rein systematischen Ansatz schwer zu erreichen w\u00e4ren. Eine neue Funktion sieht zum Beispiel vor, dass NSCs eine Fernsehsendung anschauen und darauf reagieren.\n\nIn K\u00fcrze wird sich das Team mit verschiedenen Orten im Schiffsinneren befassen.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm Juli haben die KI-Features die Qualit\u00e4t verschiedener Verhaltensweisen verbessert, darunter auch das Aufheben der Fesselung. Zum Beispiel kann die KI jetzt aufwachen, w\u00e4hrend sie gefesselt ist, und nach anderen rufen, um sie zu retten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Schnittstellen und Verhaltensweisen f\u00fcr KI-gesteuerte Fahrzeuge entwickelt, die mit speziellen Radarger\u00e4ten ausgestattet sind. Damit kann die KI Feinde aufsp\u00fcren, wenn sie sich verstecken oder au\u00dfer Sichtweite bewegen.\n\nDie Arbeit an Nahk\u00e4mpfen wurde fortgesetzt, um sicherzustellen, dass die KI-Bewegungsleistung gut aussieht, wozu auch die Integration neuer Performance-Capture-Animationen geh\u00f6rte. Auch die Umgebungssuche wurde verbessert, damit die NSCs ihre Umgebung einsch\u00e4tzen und dann versuchen k\u00f6nnen, das Ziel mithilfe von Deckungsm\u00f6glichkeiten zu flankieren. Das Team verbessert derzeit das Kampfverhalten, so dass NSCs MedPens verwenden k\u00f6nnen, um sich im Kampf zu heilen.\n\nDie KI-Features haben die Implementierung der KI f\u00fcr Kumpel fortgesetzt, einschlie\u00dflich eines Verhaltens, das es dem Kumpel erm\u00f6glicht, sich zu ducken und sich zwischen Deckungen zu bewegen. Auch die Wiederbelebung von Buddies wurde verbessert. Sie erkennen, wenn der Spieler am Boden liegt oder bewusstlos ist.\n\nAuf der Animationsseite wurde an einer Reihe von Funktionen gefeilt, darunter Granatenwurf, Heilung, Aufhebung der Deckung, geduckte scharfe Drehungen und das Nachladen von Waffen.\n\nKI (Tech)\nIm letzten Monat hat die KI-Abteilung die Arbeiten abgeschlossen, die es NSCs erm\u00f6glichen, zwischen EVA und Umgebungen mit Schwerkraft zu wechseln. Dies erforderte eine Aktualisierung des Usables-Codes, einschlie\u00dflich der Freigabe von Informationen zum Betreten und Verlassen der Umgebung. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen NSCs Schiffe durch Luftschleusen oder Luken betreten und verlassen, indem sie sich \u00fcber Vorspr\u00fcnge st\u00fcrzen. Das Team hat au\u00dferdem einfache Verhaltensweisen und Zuweisungen f\u00fcr das Betreten und Verlassen von Schiffen implementiert, die einen Weg zu einem Ort berechnen und die am besten geeignete M\u00f6glichkeit nutzen, um den \u00dcbergang zu beenden.\n\nAuf der Seite des Navigationssystems verbesserte AI Tech die Navigationslinks, um zwei B\u00e4nde aus verschiedenen Zonen miteinander zu verbinden, was f\u00fcr sich bewegende Plattformen notwendig ist. Die vorherige Implementierung erlaubte nur Verbindungen zwischen Eltern- und Kindzonen, nicht aber zwischen zwei nicht miteinander verbundenen Zonen. Weitere Optimierungen und Verbesserungen wurden auch bei den Raycasts der Navigationsmaschinerie vorgenommen.\n\nAI Tech hat auch die laufende Arbeit an Boids fortgesetzt. Zurzeit arbeiten sie an 2D-Boids-Agenten, wie z. B. Nagetieren, die sich innerhalb der Grenzen des Navigationsnetzes \u00fcber das Gel\u00e4nde bewegen k\u00f6nnen. Sie f\u00fcgen auch Einschr\u00e4nkungen hinzu, um die R\u00e4nder des Navigationsnetzes zu vermeiden und sicherzustellen, dass die Boids innerhalb der navigierbaren Bereiche bleiben. Als N\u00e4chstes werden sie sich mit Boids-Agenten besch\u00e4ftigen, die w\u00e4hrend der Bewegung oder im Leerlauf Animationen abspielen.\n\nDer Subsumption-Editor hat zahlreiche Verbesserungen erhalten, darunter einen Variablen-Editor, die M\u00f6glichkeit, Zust\u00e4nde beim Bearbeiten eines Mastergraphen zu kopieren und einzuf\u00fcgen, eine verbesserte Ansicht der Mastergraphen-\u00dcberg\u00e4nge, eine verbesserte Aktivit\u00e4tsansicht f\u00fcr verf\u00fcgbare Unteraktivit\u00e4ten und Funktionen sowie ein Validierungsfenster, das Fehler und Warnungen beim Laden und Speichern von Dateien anzeigt.\n\nVerschiedene Funktionen und KI-Systeme wurden ebenfalls verbessert. F\u00fcr den Koordinator der Nutzergruppen k\u00f6nnen Designer jetzt festlegen, dass eine Gruppe von NSCs synchronisiert werden soll, wenn sie von einer Nutzergruppe zu einer anderen \u00fcbergeht. F\u00fcr NSC, die Karren schieben, optimierte das Team den PID-Regler und passte die Standardparameter an, damit sie sich schneller stabilisieren, nachdem sie einen Weg eingeschlagen haben.\n\nF\u00fcr die Wahrnehmung von Audiostimuli durch NSCs hat die KI-Abteilung damit begonnen, neue Funktionen des Audio-Teams zu nutzen, die das Raumsystem nutzen, um zu verstehen, ob ein Audio-Ereignis empfangen werden soll.\n\nKI (Fahrzeuge)\nDie Fahrzeug-KI konzentrierte sich im Juli auf die Unterst\u00fctzung des Leveldesigns. Die Fahrzeug-KI hat einen gro\u00dfen Einfluss auf das Leveldesign, vor allem bei den Flugkapiteln, daher wurde viel Zeit damit verbracht, Probleme zu untersuchen, Designer zu unterst\u00fctzen und neue Funktionen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen.\n\nEs wurde weiter daran gearbeitet, das neue System zum Zielen von Fahrzeugen in die KI zu integrieren. Die NSC-Piloten nutzen das neue System genauso wie die Spieler, was die Genauigkeit der KI deutlich verbessert hat. Das erfordert zwar ein Balancing, aber sie haben jetzt viel mehr Kontrolle als vorher.\n\nVerbesserungen und \u00c4nderungen wurden am atmosph\u00e4rischen Flug vorgenommen. In der Atmosph\u00e4re fliegt die KI jetzt mit Steuerfl\u00e4chen und der Luftkampf wird wieder zu einem traditionellen Kampfstil. Au\u00dferdem wollte das Team den Spielern mehr M\u00f6glichkeiten geben, hinter die KI zu kommen. Deshalb machen die Feinde jetzt gelegentlich Fehler und brechen aus und hinterlassen Fenster, die sie vorher nicht hatten. Das hat zu einem viel angenehmeren Erlebnis gef\u00fchrt.\n\nAnimation\nIm letzten Monat ging das Animationsteam von der Alpha- in die Beta-Phase \u00fcber. Dabei wurden die visuellen Ergebnisse von Nachladevorg\u00e4ngen und Takedowns sowie die grundlegenden Leerl\u00e4ufe f\u00fcr Waffen und Messer verbessert.\n\nDas Team arbeitete weiter an der Hintergrund- und System-KI und \u00fcbernahm eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Rolle bei der Verbesserung der visuellen Wiedergabetreue. Au\u00dferdem wurden die Nachladeanimationen f\u00fcr gegnerische Spezialwaffen eingef\u00fchrt und zwei hochintensive K\u00e4mpfe implementiert.\n\nDerzeit werden die Animationen f\u00fcr die Spieler aktualisiert und immer mehr Spielerinteraktionen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die Immersion in bestimmten Umgebungen zu verbessern.\n\nAuf der Gesichtsseite hat das Team die Entwicklung von qualitativ hochwertigen Gesichtsanimationen f\u00fcr verschiedene Filmszenen fortgesetzt und neue Eingangslinien f\u00fcr die Kampf- und Sozial-KI unterst\u00fctzt.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wird an zwei Mo-Cap-Drehs gearbeitet: einer f\u00fcr erz\u00e4hlerische Anforderungen und ein weiterer f\u00fcr Ad-hoc-Bed\u00fcrfnisse der sozialen und Kampf-KI.\n\nAudio\nDer Bereich Audio hat die Aufgabe fortgesetzt, generische Animationen mit neuen Foley-Soundeffekten zu versehen. Dies wird die Immersion im gesamten Spiel erh\u00f6hen, auch in Nicht-Spiel-Szenen (z. B. in Filmsequenzen), in denen allgemeine Animationen wiederverwendet werden.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem neue Waffensoundeffekte entworfen und implementiert - ein wichtiger Schritt zur Verbesserung des Sounds in allen FPS-Funktionen. Mehrere Gadgets erhielten ihren ersten Audio-Pass, um alle interaktiven Ger\u00e4te in der Kampagne mit Sound zu versehen.\n\nDas Audio-Team bewertete auch den Arbeitsaufwand f\u00fcr die geplanten Verbesserungen des Flugerlebnisses und identifizierte Bereiche, die entwickelt oder verbessert werden m\u00fcssen. Au\u00dferdem wird das Technical Sound Team bald mit der Entwicklung eines neuen Vibrationssystems beginnen, das die Spannung und Immersion von Dogfights und gro\u00dfen Weltraumschlachten verst\u00e4rken und das Flugerlebnis insgesamt deutlich verbessern soll.\n\nIn Vorbereitung auf die n\u00e4chste Entwicklungsphase wurden alle bestehenden Ger\u00e4uschkulissen \u00fcberpr\u00fcft; derzeit sind alle Basisger\u00e4usche implementiert, die mit kleineren, nuancierten Details verfeinert werden. Au\u00dferdem wurde das Sounddesign f\u00fcr die gro\u00dfen Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme fertiggestellt, die die Spieler\/innen in einem fr\u00fchen Teil des Spiels benutzen k\u00f6nnen. Die Kanoneneffekte wurden \u00fcberarbeitet, damit sie kr\u00e4ftiger und \"bulliger\" klingen, w\u00e4hrend die Gatling-Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme einen neuen Laufdrehungseffekt erhalten haben.\n\nIm Bereich Audio schlie\u00dflich verbrachte das Dialogteam Zeit am Set, um einige Szenen zu drehen und die Dialoge im Spiel zu meistern.\n\nEngine\nDas Core-Engine-Team machte Fortschritte bei der Entwicklung von StarBuild, dem neuen hauseigenen Code-Build-System, das WAF ersetzen wird; im letzten Monat wurden Probleme behoben und Verbesserungen umgesetzt, die auf dem Feedback der Entwickler\/innen beruhten.\n\nF\u00fcr MemReplay 2.0 f\u00fchrte das Team VirtualMemoryAreas als Konzept f\u00fcr das Speicherzuweisungssystem ein, das den vom Betriebssystem zugewiesenen Speicher besser verfolgt und eine verbesserte Visualisierung der Unterzuweisungen bietet.\n\nAnschlie\u00dfend wurden die verbleibenden \"MapAndWrite\"-Verwerfungsaufrufe im Renderer in Vorbereitung auf das neue Vulkan-Backend entfernt. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Code-Struktur des Spielstarts \u00fcberarbeitet, um Code-Duplikate zu reduzieren und Linux-basierte Headless-Clients zu erm\u00f6glichen, was das automatische Testen erleichtert.\n\nDas Physikteam half den Spielteams weiterhin bei der Behebung verschiedener physikbezogener Fehler im Spielcode. Au\u00dferdem wurden das neue Stoffsystem und Maelstrom aktualisiert und die aktiven und animierten Lappenpuppen verbessert.\n\nDas Entity-System-Team unterst\u00fctzte haupts\u00e4chlich verschiedene technische Initiativen, darunter RaStar und das Ressourcennetzwerk. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Erforschung von M\u00f6glichkeiten, wie man generierte Orte erstellen und begrenzen kann, um ein reichhaltiges Erlebnis zu bieten, ohne die Leistung zu beeintr\u00e4chtigen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Fehler f\u00fcr das k\u00fcrzlich aktivierte \"asynchrone Laden des Editors\" behoben und es werden derzeit weitere Sicherheitspr\u00fcfungen f\u00fcr den korrekten Zugriff auf Entit\u00e4ten hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nIm Juli wurde mit der Arbeit am Simpod begonnen, in dem die Spieler\/innen in verschiedene Simulationen einsteigen k\u00f6nnen, um ihre F\u00e4higkeiten zu trainieren.\n\n\"Das ist ein ziemlich aufw\u00e4ndiger Prozess, bei dem wir die Spieler\/innen in eine neue Umgebung teleportieren, ihre Ausr\u00fcstung und ihren Status \u00e4ndern, den Spielmodus und die Spielregeln \u00e4ndern und alles wieder zur\u00fccksetzen m\u00fcssen, wenn die Simulation beendet ist. Es ist nicht wie in der Matrix - wenn du in der Simulation stirbst, stirbst du nicht in der echten Welt.\" Gameplay-Funktionen\n\nAn anderer Stelle wurde das Formationsfliegen auf der Grundlage des Feedbacks aus den laufenden Missionspr\u00fcfungen \u00fcberarbeitet. Dies f\u00fchrte zu verschiedenen \u00c4nderungen, z. B. wie die Spieler\/innen der Formation beitreten, wie die Formation fliegt, um sich der Ausrichtung des Anf\u00fchrers anzupassen, und zu zahlreichen Verbesserungen der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che.\n\nAuch bei der Minikarte wurden Fortschritte erzielt, z. B. durch das Entfernen von Markierungen au\u00dferhalb der Kameraansicht und das Beschneiden wichtiger Markierungen am Rand der Ansicht. Neue Markierungen f\u00fcr gef\u00e4hrliche Objekte wie Granaten und Raketen wurden sowohl auf der Minikarte als auch auf der Sternenkarte hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nFeatures (Fahrzeug)\nIm letzten Monat hat das Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeug-Features zusammen mit den Level-Design-Teams verschiedene Kapitel abgeschlossen und das Spielgef\u00fchl verbessert.\n\nEiner dieser Schl\u00fcsselbereiche ist das Ziel- und Schusssystem f\u00fcr Fahrzeuge. In diesem Zusammenhang untersuchte das Team Optionen, um das Zielen herausfordernder zu gestalten, was zum Teil auf das etwas \u00fcberm\u00e4chtige Auto-Gimbal-System zur\u00fcckzuf\u00fchren ist. Neue Zielmodi, dynamisches Zoomen auf Ziele und andere Elemente werden das Kampferlebnis noch fesselnder machen.\n\nDie Steuerfl\u00e4chen wurden letzten Monat fertiggestellt. Das Team hat die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che so ver\u00e4ndert, dass zus\u00e4tzliche Informationen angezeigt werden, z. B. \u00dcberziehgeschwindigkeit, ausgew\u00e4hlter Modus, Triebwerk und Steuerfl\u00e4che. Weitere Steuerungsoptionen werden nach dem Playtesting in Betracht gezogen.\n\nDie Fahrzeugfunktionen haben au\u00dferdem damit begonnen, die Physik-Teams mit der Technologie f\u00fcr physischen Schaden zu unterst\u00fctzen, was eine Reihe von \u00dcberarbeitungen des Fahrzeugsystems auf niedrigerer Ebene erfordert. Dadurch werden die Fahrzeuge so aktualisiert, dass sie modernere Systeme in der Engine nutzen und viel besser mit physischem Schaden und anderen neuen Funktionen funktionieren.\n\nDie Arbeit an den Multifunktionsdisplays (MFDs) im Juli konzentrierte sich auf das Scannen. Dies ist der bei weitem komplexeste MFD-Bildschirm, der Informationen \u00fcber das gescannte Ziel anzeigt und es den Spielern erm\u00f6glicht, durch einen tieferen Scan mehr \u00fcber die inneren Komponenten des Ziels herauszufinden. Das funktioniert jetzt wie vorgesehen.\n\nDie Turmsitze werden derzeit auf das neue MFD-System umgestellt. Die Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme verf\u00fcgen au\u00dferdem \u00fcber eine modifizierte Version des MFD f\u00fcr den Selbststatus des Fahrzeugs, die mehr f\u00fcr Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme relevante Informationen anzeigt.\n\nEin weiteres kleineres UI-Element, an dem gearbeitet wurde, war das Terminal zum Aufr\u00fcsten und Auftanken an einigen Landepl\u00e4tzen. Dies erforderte einige neue UI-Technikelemente, die gel\u00f6st wurden.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich ist das Terminal f\u00fcr die Fahrzeugbeladung jetzt weitgehend funktionsf\u00e4hig und erm\u00f6glicht es den Spielern, alle in ihrem Profil verf\u00fcgbaren Gegenst\u00e4nde zu sehen und sie auf ihren Schiffen im Idris-Hangar auszur\u00fcsten. Die Fahrzeugfunktionen arbeiten derzeit mit dem UI-Team zusammen, um das Aussehen dieses Terminals zu finalisieren.\n\nGameplay Story\nAnfang Juli hat Gameplay Story die Einrichtung des Fluglotsenplatzes (ATC) abgeschlossen. Anschlie\u00dfend wurden alle Szenen, in denen es um den Fluglotsensitz geht, aktualisiert, damit sie mit den genehmigten Metriken funktionieren.\n\n\"Das war ein ziemlich gro\u00dfes Unterfangen, aber es war toll zu sehen, dass so viele Szenen, die lange blockiert waren, endlich fertiggestellt wurden.\" Gameplay Story Team\n\nAu\u00dferdem haben sie eine Szene in Kapitel 12 implementiert und den Anfang einer Szene in Kapitel 14 mit neuem Mo-Cap aktualisiert.\n\nVor kurzem hat sich das Gameplay Features Team einem gro\u00dfen Streikteam angeschlossen, um die Animationen der Idris zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen und zu verbessern. Im letzten Monat wurden neue TrackViews f\u00fcr die Deckcrew erstellt, die das Cockpit der Gladius betritt, das Gatling-Gesch\u00fctz \u00fcberpr\u00fcft und die Haupttriebwerke testet.\n\nGrafik- und VFX-Programmierung\nIm letzten Monat wurden mehrere neue Funktionen zum Global Illumination System hinzugef\u00fcgt, darunter die erste Implementierung der zeitlichen Gl\u00e4ttung f\u00fcr Screen Space Probes, die zu stabileren Ergebnissen bei geringeren Kosten f\u00fchren wird. Au\u00dferdem wurde die G-Buffer-Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Umgebungssonden hinzugef\u00fcgt, um eine kosteng\u00fcnstige Szenendarstellung f\u00fcr sekund\u00e4re Lichtabstrahlungen zu erm\u00f6glichen. Dar\u00fcber hinaus wurden neue Debug-Modi und ein neuer Mechanismus zum Sammeln von Lichtern f\u00fcr das GI-System hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nEine grundlegende Implementierung von Temporal Super Resolution wurde fertiggestellt, die im Zuge der Integration in die Grafik-Engine weiter verbessert und korrigiert wird.\n\nDie Speicherzuweisungs-API von AMD wurde in das Vulkan-Backend integriert, wodurch die Stabilit\u00e4t des Systems, die Streaming-Geschwindigkeit und die Pufferlesezeiten verbessert wurden. Eine Verringerung der Streaming-\/Rendering-Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten hat die Leistung verbessert, und neue Parameter erm\u00f6glichen es den Entwicklern, den ShaderStage- und Ownership-Status des RenderGraphs zu \u00e4ndern. Diese Funktionen wurden zusammen mit laufenden Fehlerbehebungen f\u00fcr visuelle Regressionstests hinzugef\u00fcgt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf dem Render-to-Texture-System lag.\n\nIm Rahmen der laufenden UI-Verfeinerungen und Vereinheitlichungen wird die Silhouetten-\/Highlight-Funktion derzeit durch ein weicheres und helleres \u00e4u\u00dferes Gl\u00fchen verbessert. Die Minikarte hat au\u00dferdem einen Ping-Effekt erhalten, der um Ziele herum blinkt, um die Navigation im Spiel zu verbessern.\n\nDas Feature-Team arbeitet daran, den neuen einheitlichen Wassershader ins Spiel zu bringen, der Details wie Pf\u00fctzen, die beim Aufprall spritzen, und Probleme bei der Kollisionserkennung bei gro\u00dfen Wasservolumen behebt. Au\u00dferdem ist ein neues System zur Verwaltung von Wassersimulationen in Arbeit, das Regionen bei Kollisionen aktiviert und deaktiviert, wenn sie sich gesetzt haben, und das die Leistung st\u00e4ndig \u00fcberwacht und sch\u00fctzt, indem es aktive Simulationen begrenzt. In der Zwischenzeit wird aktiv an einem neuen Hash-Map-System f\u00fcr die Zuweisung von Wasserpufferregionen und gro\u00dfen fl\u00e4chenfreundlichen Wasservolumina gearbeitet, damit das neue einheitliche WaterBuffer-System standardm\u00e4\u00dfig aktiviert werden kann.\n\nDas WorldBuilder-System wurde im letzten Monat in vielerlei Hinsicht verbessert. Unter anderem wurde die High-Level-Logik, die die Hintergrundjobs ausf\u00fchrt, \u00fcberarbeitet, wodurch die Latenzzeit deutlich verringert, Stillstand vermieden und der Code vereinfacht werden soll. Au\u00dferdem werden Planeten-Ozean-Patches nicht mehr doppelt dargestellt und das Planeten-Streaming-System wurde f\u00fcr Gen12 verbessert.\n\nDas VFX-Programmierungsteam hat Probleme behoben, die sich auf Schadenskarten auswirken; angeh\u00e4ngte Objekte aktualisieren ihre Schadenskarten jetzt korrekt, und ein Problem, bei dem unerwartete Daten in Schnappsch\u00fcssen erscheinen, wird derzeit untersucht. Bei den VFX-spezifischen Arbeiten wurde ein Problem behoben, das verhinderte, dass gruppierte untergeordnete Effekte korrekt spawnen, und es wurden Fehler bei Trennungs-Tags und externen Verweisen behoben.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden mehrere Squadron 42-spezifische Probleme behoben, z. B. Probleme mit Gaswolkenblitzen, inkonsistente Schadenskarten und ein Absturz in Kapitel sieben. Au\u00dferdem verwenden Planeteneffekte jetzt einen LOD-Cull, um unn\u00f6tige Simulationen zu verhindern, wenn ein Objekt au\u00dferhalb der Grenzen liegt, und das Team hat eine Funktion hinzugef\u00fcgt, mit der Plasmamunition an Charakteren befestigt werden kann.\n\nLeveldesign\nDas Level Design Team hat sich im Juli vor allem auf die Zwischensequenzen konzentriert und dabei auch Fehler behoben und Wartungsarbeiten durchgef\u00fchrt. Jetzt, wo alle Szeneninhalte im Spiel sind, stellt das Team sicher, dass die Szenen die erwartete Qualit\u00e4t erreichen und k\u00fcmmert sich um bestimmte Details. Zum Beispiel: \"Sind die Charaktere richtig gekleidet, sind sie auf die Umgebung\/Requisiten abgestimmt, funktionieren die Unterbrechungs-\/Zusammenf\u00fchrungspunkte wie vorgesehen, wird der Kopf verfolgt, funktionieren sie aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln?\n\nBei diesem wichtigen Unterfangen ist eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit den Teams f\u00fcr Cinematics, Gameplay, Story und Charaktere erforderlich, um verschiedene Probleme zu l\u00f6sen.\n\nAu\u00dferhalb der Szenen wurden Fortschritte bei den Fail-States gemacht. Wenn du zum Beispiel einen Kollegen schl\u00e4gst, wirst du in den Knast gebracht und von deinem Vorgesetzten zurechtgewiesen. Auch an den Speicher- und Kontrollpunkten wurde weiter gearbeitet.\n\nNarrative\nDer Schwerpunkt im Juli lag auf den Vorbereitungen f\u00fcr die beiden anstehenden Performance-Capture-Drehs. Dialoge werden zur Unterst\u00fctzung so vieler Gameplay-Funktionen verwendet, dass in letzter Zeit viele \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungen stattfanden, um sicherzustellen, dass die Tutorials, Anweisungen und Hilfen, die die verschiedenen Charaktere geben, mit dem Gameplay-Erlebnis \u00fcbereinstimmen. Das Team hat au\u00dferdem einige Dialogausl\u00f6ser identifiziert, die h\u00e4ufiger vorkommen als urspr\u00fcnglich angenommen, und hat deshalb mehr Zeilenvarianten aufgenommen, damit die Spieler\/innen nicht so oft denselben Ton h\u00f6ren m\u00fcssen.\n\n\"Diese Aufnahmesitzungen bedeuten auch, dass ein Gro\u00dfteil der Platzhalterdialoge des Teams bald durch die tats\u00e4chlichen Darbietungen ersetzt werden wird. Die Leute im ganzen Studio stellen sicher, dass sie diese inspirierten tempor\u00e4ren Auftritte der Teammitglieder genie\u00dfen k\u00f6nnen, solange sie noch k\u00f6nnen.\" Narrative Team\n\nAu\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzte das Team die Lokalisierung und half bei der Validierung von Untertiteln. Dieser Prozess wird noch andauern, da einige der k\u00fcrzlich aufgenommenen Audiodateien noch durch die Pipeline gehen m\u00fcssen. Es ist wichtig, dass die Audioaufnahmen mit dem Skript abgeglichen werden, um sicherzustellen, dass die Untertitel so genau wie m\u00f6glich sind, denn oft passen die Schauspieler\/innen w\u00e4hrend der Aufnahme ihre S\u00e4tze leicht an, damit sie nat\u00fcrlicher klingen.\n\nForschung & Entwicklung\nIm Juli wurden weitere Updates f\u00fcr die Atmosph\u00e4re und das volumetrische Wolkenrendering vorgenommen. Das gef\u00fchrte Sampling, das im Wolken-Raymarcher verwendet wird, wurde auf der Grundlage der im letzten Monat vorgenommenen Verbesserungen an den Transmissionsprofilen aktualisiert. Die Profile selbst wurden zus\u00e4tzlich gefiltert (stochastisches Resampling), um gelegentliche Blockartefakte durch die Wiederverwendung von Profilen zu reduzieren. Au\u00dferdem wurde der zeitliche Rendering-Modus, der derzeit f\u00fcr die Atmosph\u00e4re und volumetrische Wolken entwickelt wird, auf eine auf geringer Diskrepanz basierende Abfolge von Sample-Offsets umgestellt, die dazu verwendet werden, Strahlen f\u00fcr das Raymarching \u00fcber die Zeit einzurichten. Auf der Grundlage aktueller Forschungsver\u00f6ffentlichungen k\u00f6nnen Wolkenschattenkarten nun stochastisch gefiltert werden, was die Leistung und Renderqualit\u00e4t erheblich verbessert. Der neue temporale Rendermodus verwendet standardm\u00e4\u00dfig den stochastischen Texturfilter.\n\nUI\nIm Juli hat das UI-Team die Display-Layouts f\u00fcr die flugf\u00e4higen Fahrzeuge von Squadron 42 \u00fcberarbeitet, um sicherzustellen, dass sie alle einzigartig aussehen und sich auch so anf\u00fchlen, dass die Benutzerfreundlichkeit erhalten bleibt, auf die das gesamte Projekt ausgelegt ist. Die Konzepte f\u00fcr das zweite Hauptfahrzeug im Spiel sind nun abgesegnet und bereit zum Hinzuf\u00fcgen, und UI arbeitet eng mit den Fahrzeugk\u00fcnstlern am Cockpit f\u00fcr das dritte Fahrzeug.\n\nDas MultiTool UI wurde ebenfalls aktualisiert, um es einfacher und \u00fcbersichtlicher zu gestalten, w\u00e4hrend die AR-Marker und das Gesundheits-Widget verbessert wurden. UI aktualisierte auch mehrere Interaktionsmen\u00fcs und entwickelte eine der wichtigsten 3D-Anzeigen im Spiel weiter.\n\nDas Core Technology Team verbesserte die Laufzeitleistung von Building Blocks, da die k\u00fcrzlich hinzugef\u00fcgten neuen UI-Assets zu einem Anstieg der Gr\u00f6\u00dfe und Komplexit\u00e4t f\u00fchrten. Dazu wurden aggressivere L\u00f6sungen f\u00fcr das \u00dcberspringen von Aktualisierungen der Hierarchieabschnitte kodiert, was zu einer geringeren CPU-Belastung und erheblichen Leistungssteigerungen f\u00fchrte.\n\nDas Team f\u00fcgte au\u00dferdem neue Funktionen zu Bindungen und Bausteinen hinzu, darunter eine Farbauswahl, ein Paginierungs-Widget und Stufenlinien f\u00fcr die Designer.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich arbeitete das UI-Team zusammen mit der Grafikabteilung an der Entwicklung eines neuen internen Kartensystems, das den Spielern hilft, sich in den komplexen St\u00e4dten, Planeten und Raumschiffen des Spiels zurechtzufinden.\n\n\"Das wird f\u00fcr die Spieler ein echter Game Changer sein und wir sind wirklich begeistert von den Fortschritten.\"\n\nVFX\nIm letzten Monat hat sich das VFX-Team weiter auf die Feuerausbreitung konzentriert. Die Shader-Verbesserungen aus dem Vormonat haben die visuelle Qualit\u00e4t erheblich verbessert, und die K\u00fcnstler haben neue Feuerpartikel (einschlie\u00dflich Looping-Feuertextursequenzen) entwickelt, die mit den Shadern harmonieren.\n\n\"Die Ergebnisse sind zwar noch in Arbeit, aber sehr ermutigend! VFX-Team\n\nAuch die Blitzeffekte in den Gaswolken wurden weiter verbessert, darunter eine neue Option, mit der die Blitze einem fahrenden Fahrzeug folgen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJuly 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 08:02:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to July\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including ship UI, weapon aiming, and fire propagation.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nLast month, AI Content made a strategic decision to concentrate resources on a single location, which brought several benefits; one being a more iterative review process, as they now meet daily with leadership and receive detailed feedback, allowing them to raise the quality bar to a shippable level. Additionally, this fostered greater teamwork and knowledge sharing among team members, expanding developer skillsets.\n\nThey also progressed with the hangar and mess hall locations. In the hangar, they introduced an overseer behavior that underpins supervisors for the deck crew, ordinance officers, and fuelers. These supervisors dynamically interact with their colleagues using datapads and oversee their work, similar to a \u2018middle manager\u2019 role. For the landing officer, they drew inspiration from aircraft-carrier takeoff-and-landing videos to create realistic deck crew actions.\n\nIn the mess hall, scripted AI was added alongside random systemic interactions. This allows the team to implement more interesting actions that might be challenging to achieve with a solely systematic approach. For example, a new addition sees NPCs watch and react to a TV show.\n\nLooking ahead, the team will shortly move on to various ship interior locations.\n\nAI (Features)\nIn July, AI Features improved the quality of various behaviors, including unrestraining. For example, AI can now wake up while restrained and call out to others to come and rescue them.\n\nThey also developed interfaces and behaviors for AI-driven vehicles equipped with specific radar gadgets. This enables the AI to locate enemies when they hide or move out of sight.\n\nWork continued on close-combat encounters to ensure that the AI locomotion performance looks good, which included integrating new performance capture animations. Environmental searches were also improved to allow NPCs to evaluate their environment and then attempt to flank the target using cover locations. The team are currently improving the combat behavior that allows NPCs to use MedPens to heal themselves in combat.\n\nAI Features continued to implement buddy AI, including a behavior that enables the buddy to crouch and locomote between cover. Buddies now also have improved reviving, acknowledging when the player is downed or unconscious.\n\nOn the animation side, polish was done on a variety of features, including grenade throwing, healing, unrestraining, crouched sharp turns, and weapon reloads.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech finalized work to allow NPCs to transition between EVA and environments with gravity. This required an update to the usables code, including exposing it to enter and exit location information. Now, NPCs can enter and exit ships through airlocks or hatches by vaulting over ledges. The team also implemented simple behaviors and assignments for entering and exiting ships, which compute a path to a location and utilize the most suitable usable to finish the transition.\n\nOn the navigation-system side, AI Tech upgraded navigation links to connect two volumes from different zones, which is needed for moving platforms. The previous implementation only allowed links between parent and child zones rather than between two unrelated zones. Further optimizations and improvements were made for navigation-mesh raycasts too.\n\nAI Tech also picked up the ongoing work on boids. They\u2019re currently working on 2D boids agents, such as rodents, that will move across terrain within the confines of the navigation mesh. They\u2019re also adding constraints to avoid navigation-mesh edges to ensure the boids stay inside navigable areas. Next, they\u2019ll look into boids agents playing animations while moving or idling.\n\nThe Subsumption editor received numerous improvements, including a variable-type editor, the ability to copy\/paste states while editing a mastergraph, improved views of how mastergraph transitions are presented, an improved activity view for available sub-activities and functions, and a validation panel that presents errors and warning when loading and saving files.\n\nVarious features and AI systems received improvements too. For the usable-group coordinator, designers can now specify that a group of NPCs should synchronize when transitioning from one group of usables to another. For NPCs pushing trolleys, the team optimized the PID controller and adjusted the default parameters to stabilize quicker after turning on a path.\n\nFor NPC perception of audio stimuli, AI Tech began using new functionality exposed by the Audio team, which will utilize the room system to understand if an audio event should be received.\n\nAI (Vehicles)\nVehicle AI focused on supporting Level Design throughout July; vehicle AI has a significant impact on level design, especially for flight chapters, so time was spent looking into issues, supporting designers, and adding new features.\n\nFurther work was done to integrate the new vehicle aiming system into AI. NPC pilots will make use of the new system just like players, which has resulted in significantly improved AI accuracy. Though this requires balancing, they now have much more control than before.\n\nImprovements and changes were made to atmospheric flight. Now, when in-atmosphere, AI fly with control surfaces and dogfighting reverts to a more traditional \u201cget-on-your-six\u201d style of combat. As part of this, the team wanted to give players more opportunities to get behind the AI, so now, enemies occasionally make mistakes and break away, leaving windows they didn\u2019t before. This has resulted in a far more enjoyable experience.\n\nAnimation\nLast month, the Animation team moved from alpha to beta work. This involved improving the visual results of reloads and takedowns as well as basic idles for weapons and knives.\n\nThe team continued working on background and systemic AI, taking a larger role in driving visual fidelity. They also kicked off reload animations for enemy spec-ops weapon types and began implementing two high-intensity combat fights.\n\nThey\u2019re currently making updates to player-prone animations and adding an increasing number of player interactions to improve immersion in specific environments.\n\nOn the facial side, the team continued developing final-quality facial animations for various cinematic scenes alongside supporting new incoming lines for combat and social AI.\n\nSupport is also ongoing for two mo-cap shoots: one for narrative requirements and another for ad-hoc social and combat AI needs.\n\nAudio\nAudio continued their ongoing task of tagging generic animations with new Foley sound effects. This will add to immersion game-wide, including non-gameplay scenes (such as cinematics) where generic animations are reused.\n\nThe team also designed and implemented new weapon sound effects; a significant step to improving the sound across all FPS features. Several gadgets received their initial audio pass in pursuit of having sound on all interactable devices across the campaign too.\n\nAudio also assessed the workload for the planned flight experience improvements, identifying areas of tech that need developing or improving. Alongside this, the Technical Sound team will soon begin writing up a new vibration system to amplify the tension and immersion of dogfights and large space battles to greatly improve the overall flight experience.\n\nTime was spent reviewing all existing ambiance work in preparation for the next stage of development; currently, all base ambiance is implemented, which will be refined with smaller, nuanced details. They also completed the sound design for the large turrets that players can use during an early portion of the game. The cannon effects were redesigned to sound more powerful and \u201cbeefier,\u201d while the Gatling turrets received a new barrel spin effect.\n\nFinally for Audio, the Dialogue team spent time on set shooting a selection of scenes and mastering in-game dialogue.\n\nEngine\nThe Core Engine team progressed with the development of StarBuild, the new in-house code-build system that will replace WAF; last month, they fixed issues and implemented improvements based on feedback from wider dev use.\n\nFor MemReplay 2.0, the team introduced VirtualMemoryAreas as a concept to the memory allocation system, which will better track OS committed memory and provide an improved visualization of sub-allocations.\n\nProgress was then made on removing the remaining \u2018MapAndWrite\u2019 discard calls in the renderer in preparation for the new Vulkan backend. They also reworked the game-launcher code structure to reduce code duplications and enable Linux-based headless clients, which will help with automatic testing.\n\nThe Physics team continued helping the game teams fix various physics-related bugs in the game code. They also updated the new cloth system and Maelstrom, and began improving active and animated ragdolls.\n\nThe Entity System team primarily supported various technical initiatives, including RaStar and the Resource Network. This involved exploring ways to create and limit generated locations to provide a rich experience without negatively impacting performance.\n\nFinally, they provided bug fixes for the recently enabled 'async editor loading,' and are currently adding more safety checks for correct entity access.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nJuly saw work begin on the in-game simpod, where players can load into different simulations to practice their skills.\n\n\u201cThis is a fairly involved process, where we need to teleport the player into a new environment, change their loadout and status, change the game mode and game rules, and restore everything back again when the simulation has finished. It\u2019s not like the Matrix - if you die in the simulation, you don\u2019t die in the real world.\u201d Gameplay Features\n\nElsewhere, a pass was done on formation flying based on feedback from the ongoing mission reviews. This led to various changes, including how players join the formation, the way it flies to match the orientation of the leader, and numerous UI improvements.\n\nProgress was also made on the mini-map, including culling markers outside of the camera view and clipping important markers to the view edge. New markers for dangerous objects, such as grenades and missiles, were added to both the mini-map and Starmap too.\n\nFeatures (Vehicle)\nLast month, the Vehicle Features team worked alongside the Level Design teams to close out various chapters and improve how the game plays and feels.\n\nOne of these key areas is the vehicle aiming and gunnery system. As part of this, the team explored options to make aiming more challenging, which is partially driven by the slightly overpowered auto-gimbal system. New aiming modes, dynamic zooming on targets, and other elements will make the combat experience more engaging.\n\nControl surfaces was finalized last month, with the team making UI changes to show additional information, including stall speed, selected mode, and thruster and control surface. Further control options will be considered following playtesting.\n\nVehicle Features also began supporting the Physics teams with physical damage tech, which requires a lot of lower-level vehicle-system refactors. This will update vehicles to use much more modern systems in the engine and work far better with physical damage and other recent features.\n\nJuly\u2019s work on multi-function displays (MFDs) focused on scanning. This is by far the most complex MFD screen, showing information from the scanned target and allowing players to find out about its internal components by utilizing a deeper scan. This is now working as intended.\n\nTurret seats are currently being converted to use the new MFD system. Turrets also have a modified version of the vehicle self-status MFD, which shows more turret-relevant information.\n\nAnother smaller UI element worked on was rearm and refuel terminal located at some landing pads. This required a few new UI tech elements, which were resolved.\n\nLastly, the vehicle loadout terminal is now largely functional, allowing players to see all the items available in their profile and equip them onto their ships in the Idris\u2019 hangar. Vehicle Features are currently working with the UI team to finalize how this terminal will look.\n\nGameplay Story\nAt the start of July, Gameplay Story completed the setup for the air-traffic controller (ATC) operator seat. They followed this by updating all their scenes that involve operator seats to work with the approved metrics.\n\n\u201cThis was quite a big undertaking but it was great to see so many scenes that have been blocked for a long time finally get to a finished state.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nAlongside this, they did an implementation pass for a scene in chapter 12 and used new mo-cap to update the start of a scene in chapter 14.\n\nRecently, Gameplay Features joined a large strike team to review and improve animations on the Idris. Last month, this involved creating new TrackViews for deck crew entering the Gladius' cockpit, checking the Gatling gun, and testing the main thrusters.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nSeveral new features were added to the Global Illumination system last month, including the initial implementation of temporal smoothing for screen space probes, which will produce more stable results at a lower cost. G-buffer support was also added to environment probes to provide a cheap scene representation for secondary light bounces. In addition, new debug modes were added alongside a new mechanism to gather lights for the GI system.\n\nA basic implementation of Temporal Super Resolution was completed, which will continue to receive fixes and improvements as it\u2019s integrated into the graphics engine.\n\nAMD\u2019s memory allocation API was integrated into the Vulkan backend, improving the system\u2019s stability, streaming speeds, and buffer read times. A reduction in streaming\/rendering dependencies has improved performance, and new parameters will allow the devs to modify the RenderGraph\u2019s ShaderStage and ownership state. These features were added alongside ongoing bug fixes to visual regression tests with a focus on the render-to-texture system.\n\nAs part of ongoing UI refinements and unifications, the silhouette\/highlight feature is currently being improved with a softer and brighter outer glow. The mini-map also received a ping effect, which will blink around objectives for improved in-game navigation.\n\nThe Feature team is working to bring the new unified water shader to the game, adding details such as puddles that splash on impact and fixing collision-detection issues on large water volumes. A new system to manage water simulations is also in progress that will activate regions upon collision, deactivate them when they have settled, and constantly monitor and protect performance by limiting active simulations. Meanwhile, a new hash-map system for allocating water buffer regions and large surface-area-friendly water volumes is actively being worked on so the new unified WaterBuffer system can be enabled by default.\n\nThe WorldBuilder system saw a variety of improvements last month, including a major refactor to the high-level logic that runs background jobs, which should significantly reduce latency, avoid stalls, and simplify the code. In addition, planet ocean patches no longer render in duplicates, and the planet streaming system was fixed for Gen12.\n\nThe VFX Programming team fixed issues impacting damage maps; attached objects now correctly update their damage maps and an issue causing unexpected data to appear in snapshots is being investigated. For VFX-specific work, an issue preventing grouped child effects from spawning correctly was addressed, and bugs on separator tags and external referencing were fixed.\n\nMultiple Squadron 42-specific issues were resolved too, such as gas-cloud lightning problems, inconsistent damage maps, and a crash in chapter seven. In addition, planet effects now use a LOD cull to prevent unnecessary simulation when an object is out of bounds, and the team added functionality to allow plasma ammunition to attach to characters.\n\nLevel Design\nLevel Design\u2019s main focus throughout July was interstitials, including bug fixing and maintenance. With all of the team\u2019s scene content now in-game, they moved on to ensuring scenes reach the expected quality threshold and addressing specific details. For example, \u2018Are characters in their correct outfits, are they aligned to the environment\/props, do the interrupt\/rejoin points work as intended, are they head tracking, do they work from various approach angles?\u2019\n\nThis significant undertaking requires working closely with the Cinematics, Gameplay Story, and Character teams to iron out various issues.\n\nOutside of scenes, progress was made on fail states. For example, punching a colleague will see players taken to the brig and getting a dressing down from a superior. Work continued on save and checkpoints too.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative\u2019s focus in July was preparing for the two upcoming performance-capture shoots. Dialogue is used to support so many gameplay features that there have been a lot of recent reviews to ensure that the tutorials, instructions, and help that the various characters provide are in alignment with the gameplay experience. The team also identified several dialogue triggers that occur more frequently than initially estimated, so they went back to capture more line variants so that players won\u2019t have to hear the same audio quite as frequently.\n\n\u201cThese recording sessions also mean that much of the team\u2019s placeholder dialogue will soon be replaced by the actual performances. People across the studio are making sure to enjoy these inspired temporary performances by fellow team members while they still can.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nAdditionally, the team supported localization, assisting with subtitle validation. This process will be ongoing as some of the more recently captured audio still needs to go through the pipeline. It\u2019s important that the actual audio recordings are validated to the script to ensure that the subtitles are as accurate as possible, as often during the recording process, actors will slightly adjust lines to make them sound more natural.\n\nResearch & Development\nIn July, further updates were made to atmosphere and volumetric cloud rendering. Guided sampling used in the cloud raymarcher was updated based on last month's improvements to transmittance profiles. The profiles themselves received additional filtering (stochastic resampling) to reduce occasional block artifacts due to profile reuse. Moreover, the temporal render mode currently being developed for atmosphere and volumetric clouds was switched to a low discrepancy-based sequence of sample offsets that are used to set up rays for raymarching over time. Based on recent research publications, cloud shadow maps can now be stochastically filtered, which considerably improves performance and render quality. The new temporal render mode will use the stochastic texture filter by default.\n\nUI\nJuly saw the UI team iterating on display layouts for Squadron 42\u2019s flyable vehicles to ensure they all look and feel unique but retain the ease of use built on throughout the project. The concepts for the second main vehicle in the game are now signed off and ready to add, and UI are working closely with the vehicle artists on the cockpit for the third.\n\nThe MultiTool UI was also updated to make it much simpler and cleaner, while improvements were made to the AR markers and health widget. UI also updated several interaction menus and continued developing one of the key 3D displays in the game.\n\nThe Core Technology team improved Building Blocks\u2019 runtime performance, as the recent addition of new UI assets led to an increase in size and complexity. This involved coding more aggressive solutions for skipping hierarchy section updates, which led to a reduced CPU footprint and significant performance gains.\n\nThe team also continued adding new features to Bindings and Building Blocks, including a color picker, pagination widget, and stepped lines for the designers.\n\nFinally, UI worked alongside Graphics to develop a new internal map system to help players navigate the game\u2019s complex cities, planets, and capital ships.\n\n\"This will be a real game changer for players and we're really excited by its progress.\"\n\nVFX\nLast month, the VFX team continued to focus on fire propagation. With the shader improvements from the previous month adding greatly to overall visual quality, the artists created new fire particles (including looping fire texture sequences) to work in harmony with the shaders.\n\n\u201cThe results, though still work-in-progress, are very encouraging!\u201d VFX Team\n\nFurther improvements were also made to gas-cloud lightning effects, including a new option to allow lightning to follow a moving vehicle.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2023-08-09T19:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"2 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 15:11:11","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":19402,"next_id":19405}}