Monthly Report: July 2014
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Greetings Citizens,
July was a big month for Star Citizen! The long battle with rubber-banding tested our resolve at times, but we finally achieved victory! We’re ecstatic with the results of all our work: Arena Commander’s multiplayer is playing like we originally intended.
We’re eager to move on to integrating other portions of the larger game… including those that have been in simultaneous development across our studios and outsource partners! August will see several big events, including Chris’ presentation at Gamescom and presentations at PAX East and Dragon*Con. Expect to see some cool parts of the Star Citizen universe in the coming weeks!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer
Greetings Citizens,
At this point, I think it’s safe to say that you already know a lot of what Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica has been focusing on! Our engineers have been working the rubber banding problem since the release of 12.4, and we’re so happy that the fix is finally out. Eliminating rubber banding (and in the process so many other issues) involved taking several aspects of Arena Commander (including our very complex physics system) apart, examining all the pieces and then hoping they fit back together correctly. But the early word is they do, and 12.5 is the best multiplayer experience yet!
If you’re interested in some very specific details about this process, please check out the “patch update” posts released during each week of 12.5’s development. To make a long story short, though, every single member of the Santa Monica team went above and beyond to get this thing out, whether that meant playtesting in their spare time or working until the wee hours rewriting physics code.
Arena Commander isn’t the only thing expanding this month, though: the office itself is growing. We’re in the process of moving the Community team (and several others) into additional office space next door, which will give us room to grow the team here. One thing that’s allowing us to do is move the ship production pipeline to Santa Monica. Kami traveled to Austin last week to work on that transition, which will allow Chris more visibility on where a particular ship is at any time.
We’ve also been preparing for our Gamescom 2014 demo, which will happen in just over two weeks. Sandi and her team have done a great job of planning the event, where you’ll get a chance to meet some of the team behind Arena Commander. We’re eager to hang out with the backers who are making this all possible and swap some dogfighting war stories. Look for us in Cologne and feel free to say hi if you spot us around the show.
Looking forward, we’re hoping to expand the Arena Commander multiplayer base as soon as possible. Expect news on that shortly. In the meantime, please keep helping us test the game! Your Twitch streams, CS tickets, forum comments and other interactions with the team are what has let us get to this point, and I hope you can feel how your input has allowed us to improve the AC experience. Keep your fighters flying and your feedback coming in!
Eric Peterson, Studio Director
The CIG Austin office has been hard at work on Star Citizen, from getting patch 12.5 out, to preparing for the upcoming Gamescom event. Here is an inside look at what our studio has been up to as we continue onwards toward delivering the BDSSE.
Mocap and Cinematics
Characters
We have been working on our pipeline for characters and rigging and have been investigating incorporating some interesting clothing technology from Redacted Studios in (somewhere on planet earth). We got our head scanning rig in and will soon be ready to expand our characters, we have also been investigating head customization methodologies for players. We’ve been supporting the Redacted Commercial, the Redacted II Commercial, and the bigger badder Redacted III Commercial.
Animations
Have spent the month doing a 4 week female animation set mocap session focusing on basic locomotion and FPS/weapon set moves. We have also been supporting the various commercials with motion capture, solving, and editing. In addition our very own Sandi Gardiner stopped in and put on the suit for some motion capture sessions, what a trooper!
Cinematics
We are refining the budget and schedule for the S42 mocap and performance capture shoots and beginning the pre-production process. Where will we capture? Look for an announcement sometime in the future about that.
Engineering
Release 12.4 support and profiling. Assisted with debugging and improvement of ship movement and matchmaking for release 12.5. Performed CryEngine 3.6.3 integration and submitting it for testing. Physics bug fixes. Basic live server metrics. Implemented and testing automated large universe cluster deployment. Implemented caching patch servers and pre-warming, being deployed with IT. Tool improvements and fixes, including Trackview fixes for commercial work and auto-import of Crytek SDK Perforce server. PU planning, star system layout tool, and PU prototyping. Future improved ship and character movement planning and discussion.. Oh, and released 12.5 – finally.
Design
The CIG Austin design team is hard at work on bringing the persistent universe to life. We’re starting small, getting all of the basic functionality in place and expanding as we go. We’ve put together a more detailed roadmap for the next twelve months of development, and we’re polishing off all of the design and tasking needs for that development. Of course, all of it centers around the economy and how it connects the universe.
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work supporting other areas of the universe: standardizing ship development, pushing ahead with balance for ships and parts, helping to get ships into the hangar, working out the technology and design of our clothing sets, and – as always – helping the test and balancing of the dogfighting module, as well as animation support for some ship setups. Been a busy month, but we love seeing where this is going, and we hope that you will enjoy it.
Ships
The CIG ATX ship team has been VERY busy preparing for Gamescom. Although I can’t disclose the actually ships you’ll see there, I can tell you they are awesome! Having said that we, on the ship team, are looking well past Gamescom. The month of August and September look to be very exciting with several ships in the pipeline. And we hope you enjoy the M50 – as Chris Smith just did an amazing job of getting that ready.
Art
Well, on ships we worked on the m50, mustang, constellation and it’s variants, xian scout, Vanduul ship exploration as well as various components to allow some customization in the near future.
On the characters side of the equation – Redacted commercial characters are being completed, other module characters are in the works and lots of work on the Xian Character as well as Character customizations.
On the persistent universe, or planetside of things, we worked on the Gold horizon space station for Redacted as well as Hangar revamps. In addition, the gold shirt auction has been a big success, thank you all for your continued support.
Freelance
This month CGBot has been focused on the stars – the Constellations, to be precise! They’re preparing the ship and the variants ready to go in hangars. Virtuos has been getting acquainted with our editor and preparing to start working on ships, while also continuing with props for the REDACTED demo, and Rmory is creating some awesome weapon concepts and game assets for the REDACTED as well.
On the contractor front, the focus has been mostly on getting concepts for the REDACTED demo – David Brochard and Rob McKinnon have been working on some cool armor art. In the meantime new contractor Hugues Giboire has been working up a 3D Xi’an character. Our other active contractors have been working on ships – Jim Martin has submitted some new concepts for the Caterpillar, Jan Urschel is working on the Xi’an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church continues to develop the Panther, and George Hull has delivered some awesome new revisions to the Collector concept!”
Production
In addition Citizens, we also had a PU summit in Montreal with our partners at BHVR and are very happy with what is going on up there, not to mention the weather in July is WAY better than in Austin. So, as you can see, we have been working hard on making our dream game, and will continue to march forward on making the BDSSE. The team here appreciates all the support, and patience, as we know that sometimes things go a little bit off kilter on delivery, but love being able to share all of the secrets of game development, even when some things take a bit more time. So thank you all for your continued passion, and love for this game, it keeps us all full of pride and satisfaction knowing that we are all in this together.
Erin Roberts, Studio Director
Hi again, really busy month down at the farm. So much has been achieved throughout this month at Foundry 42, from helping get 12.5 out, to some great work by the team on our next big feature release (13) and Gamescom. Not forgetting S42 which we have made really great progress on.
Loads of focus has been on GamesCom and getting as much polish into our main branch as possible to show the game at its best. (We have been running two sets of the code for the past 6-8 weeks, Release 12 branch which is what we released 12.5 from on Wednesday night, which is predominantly about getting dog fighting stable and balanced, and main where the new features are being implemented which we make new branches from when we get near to release.) This allows us to get on with new feature implementation for the game, while not destabilizing our release builds with new code and data. So basically what you have seen in 12.5 is only the work that has happened in that branch, there is much, much more that has been going on all this time that you will see soon when we hit Gamescom and release version 13.
I look forward to meeting a bunch of you while in Germany in a few weeks and showing some really cool stuff at Gamescom so I can really thank you all for your support and patience, while we endeavour to make this incredible Universe together.
Design
Blimey! Has it been a month already.
Leader Boards, Lobby systems, Key Bindings have all had design focus and are being worked on for release in 13 or soon after. Also we’ve got two new awesome game modes for DFM which we plan on showing at Gamescom and releasing with 13.
S42 has made a bunch of progress this month. We have broken down the campaign further with the writers and the tasks are all out there for the “Vertical Slice”. We have prototypes for landing and take-off being worked on right now. Also, lots of work is going into the FPS side of the game, with AI behaviour, combat, stealth, perception, pick-ups, objective systems, checkpoints and the conversations system, all being designed and implemented for the game. We have a number of missions early white boxed so we can play through from start to end to make sure the pacing is right.
The ship white-boxing on the Panther Class Escort carrier is continuing really well, and the Idris is getting closer to “Hangar” release. (caveat: it won’t fit in the hangar so there will be another cool way to get into it from the hangar).
Again, thanks for the fantastic support. It is a pleasure to be working on such an awesome project with you all.
Programming
This month we’ve been splitting our engineering time up into three parallel teams to make sure we deliver everything we want to show you guys in 12.5, Gamescom and give you all the best experience going forwards with S42.
We’ve been helping out on the 12.5 build. Apart from the rubber banding we’ve been trying to track down and fix a really nasty low repro bug which would cause the player’s head to shake constantly when they respawn after dying. Every time we thought we had a fix the player would start standing up in the cockpit instead. Every time we thought we’d fixed the standing up bug with head shake would return. And so on. We think we’ve now got a good handle and fix on both issues now for the latest patch.
We’re really excited by what we are going to show you at GamesCom. There’s been a lot of work on polishing up the HUD to make it more friendly, the radar to make it less cluttered, cameras, lots of audio improvements, new game modes and loads more.
And finally we’re supporting our designers here getting the Squadron 42 vertical slice up and running, including prototyping a new landing mechanic, and long term goals like creating a tool to make setting up the vehicles easier and less error prone, (which will allow us to get ships and vehicles into DFM much faster) a new vehicle state system, AI and, as always, lots of bug fixing!
Environment Art
The environment team has been hard at work this month on creating something special, we are producing a new location like nothing you’ve seen before in Star Citizen. We have taken the architecture, lighting and colour palette in a different direction, this will complement the existing environments – so we will have Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue), and the new map (Green). All these elements will also find their way into the PU, so it helps flesh out the Universe you will all be living in when the PU comes online.
We are really excited for you guys to see it, all will be revealed at GamesCon and Release 13.
Vehicle Art
The Ship and Vehicle Team here at Foundry 42 , has been hard at work this month continuing work on the Gladius, the Gladiator and the Retaliator, as well as our current cap ship productions like the Javelin and the Panther.
The Gladius is currently been setup for its shading, audio and animations, before it goes into the technical setup stage, where it can be made ready for the Hangar. We’re really close on this one.
The Gladiator is currently in its grey box stage, and the Retaliator is getting closer and closer to its final grey box stage.
The ongoing design work on the Javelin is working nicely alongside the art production for this ship, currently we are working on the Bridge and the Crew mess for this ship, so we can tie these rooms into the storyline for SQ42.
The massive Panther is coming along nicely as well, all the hallways are nearing completion, and we are currently focussing on the Crew Barracks and escape pods to be grey boxed.
Lots of work has also been going on with animation, where new pilot animations for the ship cockpits are going into our main branch for Gamescom, and a bunch of testing on Vanduul movement and also our character and facial systems.
Audio
This month has been all about getting the audio to follow clearer goals and design direction. We’ve further revised a selection of weapon sounds as a test bed for a new approach to weapon sounds. The weapons that we’ve done so far now include percussive/explosive elements and mechanical layers. The new approach to these sounds gives a more believable and satisfying result. We’re also excited to introduce the new ship fly-by sounds as of release 13. If a Vanduul ship tears past you, this moment will now have an exciting and carefully designed fly by sound. Plenty of other improvements have been happening across the board for the sound of Star Citizen so look forward to those over the coming months.
As well as the various improvements we’ve been making, team audio has been hard at work on gamescom related tasks which we are incredibly excited to show everyone!!
Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer
The month of July brings beautiful warm weather to Montreal and lots of planning!
This month Behaviour hosted a Persistent Universe Summit where Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec and other folks from CIG sat down with [Redacted] and the Montreal team to better and more efficiently plan the approach to world building for the PU.
Summer wouldn’t be complete without bugs! Programming has been working on a lot of Release 12.5 bug fixes related to the Visor, Arena Commander UI, as well as with the Asteroid Hangar.
The concept phase for the Origin 890 Jump is complete!
Subscriber flair for July is ready to go, and August and September flair objects are underway.
Level design, art, audio and programming teams have also been hard at work reworking the original three hangars. They are now in the debugging/polish phase and the hangars are looking more and more slick.
A galactic tune-up is also underway! The design team has been injecting Science into the current star systems. They have also been hard at work planning the first internal release of planetside.
The UI team continues to advance with various mobiGlas mock-ups, as well as a redesign of the current pause screen, flair object UI, and the occasional bug squishing. They have also been reading all your posts in the Star Citizen UI/UX thread (even though they can’t answer every post (yet)). Keep the great ideas coming!
Austin Goddard, Producer
July has come and gone but not without progress on all fronts from the CGBot team.
We are continuing to chip away at all the tasks needed to bring you the Constellation fleet. One of our main focuses when it comes to Constellation is getting one of the ships dogfight ready. The task hasn’t been simple but thanks to our friends at CIG ATX, we are well on our way to wrapping things up in the coming days.
Along with Constellation we are also working on Idris. Detailing out each room individually is a long process but we believe it will be well worth the effort when you get to explore every inch of this ship. Development will continue to take place on Idris through August.
As was mentioned in the last update we finished up two characters at the beginning of this month. We look forward to future character work and the name alone of our next character has CGBot excited. It is our hope that with these characters and ships you will enjoy navigating the galaxy.
[Redacted]
Greetings Star Citizens! July was a really solid month for the FPS Team here at [REDACTED]. Between the epic nerf gun fights that have been randomly breaking out in the office, we’ve been knocking out features and content like there’s no tomorrow and the FPS module is really starting to come together.
The engineers and designers have been implementing all the weapons and gadgets. We’ve got all the things you would normally expect like pistols, rifles, grenades, etc… but there are also some other unique goodies going in as well. Energy based weaponry, countermeasures like EMPs and some others that I don’t want to spoil for you right now! Oh and we now have flashlights… Get hype! You can now see in the dark!
More work went in to getting the pistol ready for EVA and it’s very close to being done. The new model is currently being rigged and the VFX guys have been tuning and tweaking the effects.
There was a lot of work done on the Visor HUD for FPS. A large part of the work has been integrating with the HUD system that is currently being used for ships. We’ve also been working on a mission objective system that hooks in to the Visor HUD.
The animators have been chugging along getting all of the new items and weapons rigged up and ready to go, along with character animations to accompany them. Lots of new motion capture has been going on in Austin this past month as well, some of it being for the FPS module. We’ve got animations for hit reactions coming in, death sequences and some really cool Zero G stuff which you should be hearing more about in the future.
On the audio side, sound effects are being created and polished for all of the weapons and items. Most of them are a nice mix of mechanical along with a sci-fi energy feel. We know that good sounds make for fun weapons, so we are really trying to push them to sound crisp and powerful.
The Art Team has been creating assets for the space station environment. Some new shaders and tools just came down the pipe, which has allowed them to push the visuals even further and acheive some really nice looking materials that weren’t possible before. Yes, that’s right. The game is going to look even better than it does currently!
Lastly, we’ve been helping out with some of the networking and matchmaking issues on Arena Commander. One of our engineers is a matchmaking superstar of sorts. I like to call him the Millionaire Matchmaker… hi [REDACTED], thanks for all the hard work!
That about wraps it up for this month fellow Star Citizens. See you in a month! [REDACTED] out!
P.S. – I really need to get a Nerf gun. My current policy of passive resistance is failing in the ever escalating arms race.
Benoit Beauséjour, Founder
No time to enjoy sunny Montreal summer for the platform team!
New ship pages & viewer
The new ship pages have been taking most of our cycles as we have established the data framework and views we need to present proper ship specifications to allow players to browse the ship catalog. This include a custom management console to handle managing specifications data for each ship variant and chassis as well as API endpoints to drive the Holo Viewer and Tech Overview for all current ships.
There was a huge data management task as we coordinated the capture of over 300 NEW ship screenshots for all available ships from different view angles as well as the acquisition and export of the ship technical data. A few sample are included in this report.
This major refactoring has been in the works for some time but has really come together in the last few weeks as we integrated the new WebGL Holo Viewer into the data model. The new viewer allows you to browse hardpoints, propulsion and POI directly on the ship and see the contents of the ship loadout in 3d space. In addition, we built a full 3D POI Editor that allows us to add POI markers to specific areas of each ship and/or correct the data that we imported. It’s very convenient for showing POIs on concept ships that have not reached the CryEngine yet. Work is left to fully integrate this process into the ship pipeline ; but we are hopeful that this will be properly integrated soon!
We also wanted to be able to properly report the state of each ship online. Is this ship in the hangar? Can I fly it? Is this ship currently in concept? This new framework will allow us to modify the game module pages to include the state of each ship in relation with each module.
This set of tools and data models is our first piece of the Galactapedia as all of the ship data is entirely separated from the store and will also be used to drive pieces of that module when we are closer to bring it online. We expect to take on the same work for Planets and Systems in the near future.
To properly present the new ship pages, we have also refactored the entire store to properly reflect the vision of the manufacturer and of the ships. Hopefully this new mode to browse will feel more in-fiction and properly reflect the depth of the Star Citizen universe.
You should see the results of this work online very soon! We’re excited!
Organizations Drop Two
Concept work on the features for Organizations Drop Two have continued. We plan to introduce a tool specifically for players with the “Operations” role to allow them to manage Jobs & Divisions within their Organizations. This tool mainly brings the feature of structure to your group and will be a very good way to organize it into sub units. This feature coupled with the features of “Jobs”, which will act like a tag system, will make filtering and managing members easier. We have some very cool visualization ideas on this front and we hope to be able to show you some of them soon!
We also made some headway on conceptualizing some recruiting tools for Organizations to help leaders in finding members. We hope to include these in the drop.
All in all a great month!
Matthew Jack, Founder
July was an important month for Moon Collider, as we significantly increased the size of our team, which will allow us to better meet the AI needs for Star Citizen in the future and support the other teams as they work on more AI-heavy features. We’ve been really pleased with your response to the Vanduul Swarm gameplay so far, and our new team members will really help us to continue delivering the top notch AI that you are all expecting to see when you play Star Citizen.
We’ve been a team of three-and-a-half for a while and we’ve now made the jump to six, with a core of four full-time developers and two supporting part-time. So who are the new faces?
Adam and Diana have both left the warm shores of Perth, Australia, and decided to brave the Edinburgh climate in order to be part of the Kythera team. Both of them have worked previously at Crytek as a programmer and project manager, respectively. Adam will be working full time with us programming and lending his animation expertise to help make our Kythera AI system blend seamlessly with CryEngine’s animated characters, while Diana will provide support part time taking over administrative duties so the rest of the team can spend more time getting awesome new features into the game and out to all of you to play.
Jurie is a veteran developer, having worked previously at Rockstar Games. He has been the extra “half” in recent months, doing contract work for us on our debugging toolset. Any system is only as good as it’s tools; that’s especially true for AI and with Jurie’s help we’re really pushing what’s possible (more on that below!) He will continue to work part-time from France, improving Kythera’s debugging and visualization features so that it’s easier for us and all of the Star Citizen teams to understand what’s going on in the virtual heads of AI. This will help us continue to be confident that the AI is robust, and more importantly, fun to play with and against!
Enough with the roll call, though. What have we been doing this month?
We’ve been continuing our work to get the dogfighting AI running on the server, and that’s shaping up nicely. There is still more work to do to make it more robust, but we’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far.
On the FPS side we’ve been making more improvements to the AI, with a particular focus on their perception abilities, such as incorporating line-of-sight information to determine whether they can see the player and gathering basic information about all of the characters that are nearby. Their combat abilities are still very basic at the moment, but with the groundwork we’re adding we can start developing more sophisticated behaviours.
We made some significant improvements to our toolset this month, with the main feature being an ability to record detailed data about what AI is doing while running the game, and then replay it later with visual debugging information inside the game world. This is an extremely useful feature for designers to be able to go back and examine exactly what the AI did in different situations during a playthrough, so that they can find opportunities to refine their behavior to make them more fun to play against. It’s also very handy for tracking down bugs!
A big feature that we’re starting to devote serious time to is the persistent universe, and designing how the AI needs to work, particularly planetside. There are a lot of big challenges here and we’re all very ambitious with what we’re hoping to achieve, so we’ll be spending a reasonable amount of time on design work in this area so that we get it right.
Finally, the whole team took some time off from Star Citizen earlier in the month to attend the Game/AI Conference in Vienna. This was a great opportunity to talk with other AI developers and learn about the AI technology being developed for other games. We’re passionate about keeping Kythera at the cutting edge of game AI and this conference is one of the most important annual gatherings for game AI developers, so it was really great that we could all attend. It was also an opportunity for our newly expanded team to all be in the same place at the same time, which allowed us to take this excellent team photo at the Prater amusement park in Vienna. And yes, yes we think that clown is pretty scary too.
July was a big month for Star Citizen! The long battle with rubber-banding tested our resolve at times, but we finally achieved victory! We’re ecstatic with the results of all our work: Arena Commander’s multiplayer is playing like we originally intended.
We’re eager to move on to integrating other portions of the larger game… including those that have been in simultaneous development across our studios and outsource partners! August will see several big events, including Chris’ presentation at Gamescom and presentations at PAX East and Dragon*Con. Expect to see some cool parts of the Star Citizen universe in the coming weeks!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer
Greetings Citizens,
At this point, I think it’s safe to say that you already know a lot of what Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica has been focusing on! Our engineers have been working the rubber banding problem since the release of 12.4, and we’re so happy that the fix is finally out. Eliminating rubber banding (and in the process so many other issues) involved taking several aspects of Arena Commander (including our very complex physics system) apart, examining all the pieces and then hoping they fit back together correctly. But the early word is they do, and 12.5 is the best multiplayer experience yet!
If you’re interested in some very specific details about this process, please check out the “patch update” posts released during each week of 12.5’s development. To make a long story short, though, every single member of the Santa Monica team went above and beyond to get this thing out, whether that meant playtesting in their spare time or working until the wee hours rewriting physics code.
Arena Commander isn’t the only thing expanding this month, though: the office itself is growing. We’re in the process of moving the Community team (and several others) into additional office space next door, which will give us room to grow the team here. One thing that’s allowing us to do is move the ship production pipeline to Santa Monica. Kami traveled to Austin last week to work on that transition, which will allow Chris more visibility on where a particular ship is at any time.
We’ve also been preparing for our Gamescom 2014 demo, which will happen in just over two weeks. Sandi and her team have done a great job of planning the event, where you’ll get a chance to meet some of the team behind Arena Commander. We’re eager to hang out with the backers who are making this all possible and swap some dogfighting war stories. Look for us in Cologne and feel free to say hi if you spot us around the show.
Looking forward, we’re hoping to expand the Arena Commander multiplayer base as soon as possible. Expect news on that shortly. In the meantime, please keep helping us test the game! Your Twitch streams, CS tickets, forum comments and other interactions with the team are what has let us get to this point, and I hope you can feel how your input has allowed us to improve the AC experience. Keep your fighters flying and your feedback coming in!
Eric Peterson, Studio Director
The CIG Austin office has been hard at work on Star Citizen, from getting patch 12.5 out, to preparing for the upcoming Gamescom event. Here is an inside look at what our studio has been up to as we continue onwards toward delivering the BDSSE.
Mocap and Cinematics
Characters
We have been working on our pipeline for characters and rigging and have been investigating incorporating some interesting clothing technology from Redacted Studios in (somewhere on planet earth). We got our head scanning rig in and will soon be ready to expand our characters, we have also been investigating head customization methodologies for players. We’ve been supporting the Redacted Commercial, the Redacted II Commercial, and the bigger badder Redacted III Commercial.
Animations
Have spent the month doing a 4 week female animation set mocap session focusing on basic locomotion and FPS/weapon set moves. We have also been supporting the various commercials with motion capture, solving, and editing. In addition our very own Sandi Gardiner stopped in and put on the suit for some motion capture sessions, what a trooper!
Cinematics
We are refining the budget and schedule for the S42 mocap and performance capture shoots and beginning the pre-production process. Where will we capture? Look for an announcement sometime in the future about that.
Engineering
Release 12.4 support and profiling. Assisted with debugging and improvement of ship movement and matchmaking for release 12.5. Performed CryEngine 3.6.3 integration and submitting it for testing. Physics bug fixes. Basic live server metrics. Implemented and testing automated large universe cluster deployment. Implemented caching patch servers and pre-warming, being deployed with IT. Tool improvements and fixes, including Trackview fixes for commercial work and auto-import of Crytek SDK Perforce server. PU planning, star system layout tool, and PU prototyping. Future improved ship and character movement planning and discussion.. Oh, and released 12.5 – finally.
Design
The CIG Austin design team is hard at work on bringing the persistent universe to life. We’re starting small, getting all of the basic functionality in place and expanding as we go. We’ve put together a more detailed roadmap for the next twelve months of development, and we’re polishing off all of the design and tasking needs for that development. Of course, all of it centers around the economy and how it connects the universe.
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work supporting other areas of the universe: standardizing ship development, pushing ahead with balance for ships and parts, helping to get ships into the hangar, working out the technology and design of our clothing sets, and – as always – helping the test and balancing of the dogfighting module, as well as animation support for some ship setups. Been a busy month, but we love seeing where this is going, and we hope that you will enjoy it.
Ships
The CIG ATX ship team has been VERY busy preparing for Gamescom. Although I can’t disclose the actually ships you’ll see there, I can tell you they are awesome! Having said that we, on the ship team, are looking well past Gamescom. The month of August and September look to be very exciting with several ships in the pipeline. And we hope you enjoy the M50 – as Chris Smith just did an amazing job of getting that ready.
Art
Well, on ships we worked on the m50, mustang, constellation and it’s variants, xian scout, Vanduul ship exploration as well as various components to allow some customization in the near future.
On the characters side of the equation – Redacted commercial characters are being completed, other module characters are in the works and lots of work on the Xian Character as well as Character customizations.
On the persistent universe, or planetside of things, we worked on the Gold horizon space station for Redacted as well as Hangar revamps. In addition, the gold shirt auction has been a big success, thank you all for your continued support.
Freelance
This month CGBot has been focused on the stars – the Constellations, to be precise! They’re preparing the ship and the variants ready to go in hangars. Virtuos has been getting acquainted with our editor and preparing to start working on ships, while also continuing with props for the REDACTED demo, and Rmory is creating some awesome weapon concepts and game assets for the REDACTED as well.
On the contractor front, the focus has been mostly on getting concepts for the REDACTED demo – David Brochard and Rob McKinnon have been working on some cool armor art. In the meantime new contractor Hugues Giboire has been working up a 3D Xi’an character. Our other active contractors have been working on ships – Jim Martin has submitted some new concepts for the Caterpillar, Jan Urschel is working on the Xi’an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church continues to develop the Panther, and George Hull has delivered some awesome new revisions to the Collector concept!”
Production
In addition Citizens, we also had a PU summit in Montreal with our partners at BHVR and are very happy with what is going on up there, not to mention the weather in July is WAY better than in Austin. So, as you can see, we have been working hard on making our dream game, and will continue to march forward on making the BDSSE. The team here appreciates all the support, and patience, as we know that sometimes things go a little bit off kilter on delivery, but love being able to share all of the secrets of game development, even when some things take a bit more time. So thank you all for your continued passion, and love for this game, it keeps us all full of pride and satisfaction knowing that we are all in this together.
Erin Roberts, Studio Director
Hi again, really busy month down at the farm. So much has been achieved throughout this month at Foundry 42, from helping get 12.5 out, to some great work by the team on our next big feature release (13) and Gamescom. Not forgetting S42 which we have made really great progress on.
Loads of focus has been on GamesCom and getting as much polish into our main branch as possible to show the game at its best. (We have been running two sets of the code for the past 6-8 weeks, Release 12 branch which is what we released 12.5 from on Wednesday night, which is predominantly about getting dog fighting stable and balanced, and main where the new features are being implemented which we make new branches from when we get near to release.) This allows us to get on with new feature implementation for the game, while not destabilizing our release builds with new code and data. So basically what you have seen in 12.5 is only the work that has happened in that branch, there is much, much more that has been going on all this time that you will see soon when we hit Gamescom and release version 13.
I look forward to meeting a bunch of you while in Germany in a few weeks and showing some really cool stuff at Gamescom so I can really thank you all for your support and patience, while we endeavour to make this incredible Universe together.
Design
Blimey! Has it been a month already.
Leader Boards, Lobby systems, Key Bindings have all had design focus and are being worked on for release in 13 or soon after. Also we’ve got two new awesome game modes for DFM which we plan on showing at Gamescom and releasing with 13.
S42 has made a bunch of progress this month. We have broken down the campaign further with the writers and the tasks are all out there for the “Vertical Slice”. We have prototypes for landing and take-off being worked on right now. Also, lots of work is going into the FPS side of the game, with AI behaviour, combat, stealth, perception, pick-ups, objective systems, checkpoints and the conversations system, all being designed and implemented for the game. We have a number of missions early white boxed so we can play through from start to end to make sure the pacing is right.
The ship white-boxing on the Panther Class Escort carrier is continuing really well, and the Idris is getting closer to “Hangar” release. (caveat: it won’t fit in the hangar so there will be another cool way to get into it from the hangar).
Again, thanks for the fantastic support. It is a pleasure to be working on such an awesome project with you all.
Programming
This month we’ve been splitting our engineering time up into three parallel teams to make sure we deliver everything we want to show you guys in 12.5, Gamescom and give you all the best experience going forwards with S42.
We’ve been helping out on the 12.5 build. Apart from the rubber banding we’ve been trying to track down and fix a really nasty low repro bug which would cause the player’s head to shake constantly when they respawn after dying. Every time we thought we had a fix the player would start standing up in the cockpit instead. Every time we thought we’d fixed the standing up bug with head shake would return. And so on. We think we’ve now got a good handle and fix on both issues now for the latest patch.
We’re really excited by what we are going to show you at GamesCom. There’s been a lot of work on polishing up the HUD to make it more friendly, the radar to make it less cluttered, cameras, lots of audio improvements, new game modes and loads more.
And finally we’re supporting our designers here getting the Squadron 42 vertical slice up and running, including prototyping a new landing mechanic, and long term goals like creating a tool to make setting up the vehicles easier and less error prone, (which will allow us to get ships and vehicles into DFM much faster) a new vehicle state system, AI and, as always, lots of bug fixing!
Environment Art
The environment team has been hard at work this month on creating something special, we are producing a new location like nothing you’ve seen before in Star Citizen. We have taken the architecture, lighting and colour palette in a different direction, this will complement the existing environments – so we will have Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue), and the new map (Green). All these elements will also find their way into the PU, so it helps flesh out the Universe you will all be living in when the PU comes online.
We are really excited for you guys to see it, all will be revealed at GamesCon and Release 13.
Vehicle Art
The Ship and Vehicle Team here at Foundry 42 , has been hard at work this month continuing work on the Gladius, the Gladiator and the Retaliator, as well as our current cap ship productions like the Javelin and the Panther.
The Gladius is currently been setup for its shading, audio and animations, before it goes into the technical setup stage, where it can be made ready for the Hangar. We’re really close on this one.
The Gladiator is currently in its grey box stage, and the Retaliator is getting closer and closer to its final grey box stage.
The ongoing design work on the Javelin is working nicely alongside the art production for this ship, currently we are working on the Bridge and the Crew mess for this ship, so we can tie these rooms into the storyline for SQ42.
The massive Panther is coming along nicely as well, all the hallways are nearing completion, and we are currently focussing on the Crew Barracks and escape pods to be grey boxed.
Lots of work has also been going on with animation, where new pilot animations for the ship cockpits are going into our main branch for Gamescom, and a bunch of testing on Vanduul movement and also our character and facial systems.
Audio
This month has been all about getting the audio to follow clearer goals and design direction. We’ve further revised a selection of weapon sounds as a test bed for a new approach to weapon sounds. The weapons that we’ve done so far now include percussive/explosive elements and mechanical layers. The new approach to these sounds gives a more believable and satisfying result. We’re also excited to introduce the new ship fly-by sounds as of release 13. If a Vanduul ship tears past you, this moment will now have an exciting and carefully designed fly by sound. Plenty of other improvements have been happening across the board for the sound of Star Citizen so look forward to those over the coming months.
As well as the various improvements we’ve been making, team audio has been hard at work on gamescom related tasks which we are incredibly excited to show everyone!!
Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer
The month of July brings beautiful warm weather to Montreal and lots of planning!
This month Behaviour hosted a Persistent Universe Summit where Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec and other folks from CIG sat down with [Redacted] and the Montreal team to better and more efficiently plan the approach to world building for the PU.
Summer wouldn’t be complete without bugs! Programming has been working on a lot of Release 12.5 bug fixes related to the Visor, Arena Commander UI, as well as with the Asteroid Hangar.
The concept phase for the Origin 890 Jump is complete!
Subscriber flair for July is ready to go, and August and September flair objects are underway.
Level design, art, audio and programming teams have also been hard at work reworking the original three hangars. They are now in the debugging/polish phase and the hangars are looking more and more slick.
A galactic tune-up is also underway! The design team has been injecting Science into the current star systems. They have also been hard at work planning the first internal release of planetside.
The UI team continues to advance with various mobiGlas mock-ups, as well as a redesign of the current pause screen, flair object UI, and the occasional bug squishing. They have also been reading all your posts in the Star Citizen UI/UX thread (even though they can’t answer every post (yet)). Keep the great ideas coming!
Austin Goddard, Producer
July has come and gone but not without progress on all fronts from the CGBot team.
We are continuing to chip away at all the tasks needed to bring you the Constellation fleet. One of our main focuses when it comes to Constellation is getting one of the ships dogfight ready. The task hasn’t been simple but thanks to our friends at CIG ATX, we are well on our way to wrapping things up in the coming days.
Along with Constellation we are also working on Idris. Detailing out each room individually is a long process but we believe it will be well worth the effort when you get to explore every inch of this ship. Development will continue to take place on Idris through August.
As was mentioned in the last update we finished up two characters at the beginning of this month. We look forward to future character work and the name alone of our next character has CGBot excited. It is our hope that with these characters and ships you will enjoy navigating the galaxy.
[Redacted]
Greetings Star Citizens! July was a really solid month for the FPS Team here at [REDACTED]. Between the epic nerf gun fights that have been randomly breaking out in the office, we’ve been knocking out features and content like there’s no tomorrow and the FPS module is really starting to come together.
The engineers and designers have been implementing all the weapons and gadgets. We’ve got all the things you would normally expect like pistols, rifles, grenades, etc… but there are also some other unique goodies going in as well. Energy based weaponry, countermeasures like EMPs and some others that I don’t want to spoil for you right now! Oh and we now have flashlights… Get hype! You can now see in the dark!
More work went in to getting the pistol ready for EVA and it’s very close to being done. The new model is currently being rigged and the VFX guys have been tuning and tweaking the effects.
There was a lot of work done on the Visor HUD for FPS. A large part of the work has been integrating with the HUD system that is currently being used for ships. We’ve also been working on a mission objective system that hooks in to the Visor HUD.
The animators have been chugging along getting all of the new items and weapons rigged up and ready to go, along with character animations to accompany them. Lots of new motion capture has been going on in Austin this past month as well, some of it being for the FPS module. We’ve got animations for hit reactions coming in, death sequences and some really cool Zero G stuff which you should be hearing more about in the future.
On the audio side, sound effects are being created and polished for all of the weapons and items. Most of them are a nice mix of mechanical along with a sci-fi energy feel. We know that good sounds make for fun weapons, so we are really trying to push them to sound crisp and powerful.
The Art Team has been creating assets for the space station environment. Some new shaders and tools just came down the pipe, which has allowed them to push the visuals even further and acheive some really nice looking materials that weren’t possible before. Yes, that’s right. The game is going to look even better than it does currently!
Lastly, we’ve been helping out with some of the networking and matchmaking issues on Arena Commander. One of our engineers is a matchmaking superstar of sorts. I like to call him the Millionaire Matchmaker… hi [REDACTED], thanks for all the hard work!
That about wraps it up for this month fellow Star Citizens. See you in a month! [REDACTED] out!
P.S. – I really need to get a Nerf gun. My current policy of passive resistance is failing in the ever escalating arms race.
Benoit Beauséjour, Founder
No time to enjoy sunny Montreal summer for the platform team!
New ship pages & viewer
The new ship pages have been taking most of our cycles as we have established the data framework and views we need to present proper ship specifications to allow players to browse the ship catalog. This include a custom management console to handle managing specifications data for each ship variant and chassis as well as API endpoints to drive the Holo Viewer and Tech Overview for all current ships.
There was a huge data management task as we coordinated the capture of over 300 NEW ship screenshots for all available ships from different view angles as well as the acquisition and export of the ship technical data. A few sample are included in this report.
This major refactoring has been in the works for some time but has really come together in the last few weeks as we integrated the new WebGL Holo Viewer into the data model. The new viewer allows you to browse hardpoints, propulsion and POI directly on the ship and see the contents of the ship loadout in 3d space. In addition, we built a full 3D POI Editor that allows us to add POI markers to specific areas of each ship and/or correct the data that we imported. It’s very convenient for showing POIs on concept ships that have not reached the CryEngine yet. Work is left to fully integrate this process into the ship pipeline ; but we are hopeful that this will be properly integrated soon!
We also wanted to be able to properly report the state of each ship online. Is this ship in the hangar? Can I fly it? Is this ship currently in concept? This new framework will allow us to modify the game module pages to include the state of each ship in relation with each module.
This set of tools and data models is our first piece of the Galactapedia as all of the ship data is entirely separated from the store and will also be used to drive pieces of that module when we are closer to bring it online. We expect to take on the same work for Planets and Systems in the near future.
To properly present the new ship pages, we have also refactored the entire store to properly reflect the vision of the manufacturer and of the ships. Hopefully this new mode to browse will feel more in-fiction and properly reflect the depth of the Star Citizen universe.
You should see the results of this work online very soon! We’re excited!
Organizations Drop Two
Concept work on the features for Organizations Drop Two have continued. We plan to introduce a tool specifically for players with the “Operations” role to allow them to manage Jobs & Divisions within their Organizations. This tool mainly brings the feature of structure to your group and will be a very good way to organize it into sub units. This feature coupled with the features of “Jobs”, which will act like a tag system, will make filtering and managing members easier. We have some very cool visualization ideas on this front and we hope to be able to show you some of them soon!
We also made some headway on conceptualizing some recruiting tools for Organizations to help leaders in finding members. We hope to include these in the drop.
All in all a great month!
Matthew Jack, Founder
July was an important month for Moon Collider, as we significantly increased the size of our team, which will allow us to better meet the AI needs for Star Citizen in the future and support the other teams as they work on more AI-heavy features. We’ve been really pleased with your response to the Vanduul Swarm gameplay so far, and our new team members will really help us to continue delivering the top notch AI that you are all expecting to see when you play Star Citizen.
We’ve been a team of three-and-a-half for a while and we’ve now made the jump to six, with a core of four full-time developers and two supporting part-time. So who are the new faces?
Adam and Diana have both left the warm shores of Perth, Australia, and decided to brave the Edinburgh climate in order to be part of the Kythera team. Both of them have worked previously at Crytek as a programmer and project manager, respectively. Adam will be working full time with us programming and lending his animation expertise to help make our Kythera AI system blend seamlessly with CryEngine’s animated characters, while Diana will provide support part time taking over administrative duties so the rest of the team can spend more time getting awesome new features into the game and out to all of you to play.
Jurie is a veteran developer, having worked previously at Rockstar Games. He has been the extra “half” in recent months, doing contract work for us on our debugging toolset. Any system is only as good as it’s tools; that’s especially true for AI and with Jurie’s help we’re really pushing what’s possible (more on that below!) He will continue to work part-time from France, improving Kythera’s debugging and visualization features so that it’s easier for us and all of the Star Citizen teams to understand what’s going on in the virtual heads of AI. This will help us continue to be confident that the AI is robust, and more importantly, fun to play with and against!
Enough with the roll call, though. What have we been doing this month?
We’ve been continuing our work to get the dogfighting AI running on the server, and that’s shaping up nicely. There is still more work to do to make it more robust, but we’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far.
On the FPS side we’ve been making more improvements to the AI, with a particular focus on their perception abilities, such as incorporating line-of-sight information to determine whether they can see the player and gathering basic information about all of the characters that are nearby. Their combat abilities are still very basic at the moment, but with the groundwork we’re adding we can start developing more sophisticated behaviours.
We made some significant improvements to our toolset this month, with the main feature being an ability to record detailed data about what AI is doing while running the game, and then replay it later with visual debugging information inside the game world. This is an extremely useful feature for designers to be able to go back and examine exactly what the AI did in different situations during a playthrough, so that they can find opportunities to refine their behavior to make them more fun to play against. It’s also very handy for tracking down bugs!
A big feature that we’re starting to devote serious time to is the persistent universe, and designing how the AI needs to work, particularly planetside. There are a lot of big challenges here and we’re all very ambitious with what we’re hoping to achieve, so we’ll be spending a reasonable amount of time on design work in this area so that we get it right.
Finally, the whole team took some time off from Star Citizen earlier in the month to attend the Game/AI Conference in Vienna. This was a great opportunity to talk with other AI developers and learn about the AI technology being developed for other games. We’re passionate about keeping Kythera at the cutting edge of game AI and this conference is one of the most important annual gatherings for game AI developers, so it was really great that we could all attend. It was also an opportunity for our newly expanded team to all be in the same place at the same time, which allowed us to take this excellent team photo at the Prater amusement park in Vienna. And yes, yes we think that clown is pretty scary too.
Grüße Bürger,
Juli war ein großer Monat für Star Citizen! Der lange Kampf mit dem Gummiband testete manchmal unsere Entschlossenheit, aber wir haben endlich den Sieg errungen! Wir sind begeistert von den Ergebnissen unserer gesamten Arbeit: Der Multiplayer des Arena Commander spielt so, wie wir es ursprünglich wollten.
Wir sind bestrebt, andere Teile des größeren Spiels zu integrieren.... einschließlich derjenigen, die gleichzeitig in unseren Studios und Outsourcing-Partnern entwickelt wurden! Im August werden mehrere große Events stattfinden, darunter Chris' Präsentation auf der Gamescom und Präsentationen auf der PAX East und Dragon*Con. Erwarten Sie, in den kommenden Wochen einige coole Teile des Star Citizen Universums zu sehen!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer, Dogfight Producer
Grüße Bürger,
An dieser Stelle kann man wohl sagen, dass Sie bereits viel von dem wissen, worauf sich Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica konzentriert hat! Unsere Ingenieure haben das Gummibandproblem seit dem Release 12.4 bearbeitet, und wir sind so glücklich, dass die Lösung endlich da ist. Die Beseitigung des Gummibandes (und damit auch vieler anderer Probleme) beinhaltete, dass mehrere Aspekte des Arena Commander (einschließlich unseres sehr komplexen Physiksystems) auseinander genommen, alle Teile untersucht und dann hoffentlich wieder richtig zusammengefügt wurden. Aber das erste Wort ist, dass sie es tun, und 12.5 ist das bisher beste Multiplayer-Erlebnis!
Wenn du an einigen sehr spezifischen Details über diesen Prozess interessiert bist, schau dir bitte die "Patch-Update"-Posts an, die während jeder Woche der Entwicklung von 12.5 veröffentlicht werden. Um es kurz zu machen, jedes einzelne Mitglied des Santa Monica-Teams ging darüber hinaus, um dieses Ding herauszubekommen, sei es durch Spieltests in seiner Freizeit oder durch Arbeiten bis in die frühen Morgenstunden, um Physik-Code neu zu schreiben.
Arena Commander ist nicht das Einzige, was sich diesen Monat erweitert: Das Büro selbst wächst. Wir sind dabei, das Community-Team (und einige andere) in zusätzliche Büroräume nebenan zu verlegen, was uns Raum geben wird, das Team hier zu erweitern. Eine Sache, die uns erlaubt, ist die Verlegung der Schiffsproduktionspipeline nach Santa Monica. Kami reiste letzte Woche nach Austin, um an diesem Übergang zu arbeiten, der Chris mehr Transparenz darüber geben wird, wo sich ein bestimmtes Schiff zu jeder Zeit befindet.
Wir haben uns auch auf unsere Demo zur Gamescom 2014 vorbereitet, die in etwas mehr als zwei Wochen stattfinden wird. Sandi und ihr Team haben bei der Planung der Veranstaltung hervorragende Arbeit geleistet, wo Sie die Möglichkeit haben, einen Teil des Teams hinter Arena Commander zu treffen. Wir sind begierig darauf, mit den Geldgebern zusammenzuhängen, die das alles möglich machen und einige Kriegsgeschichten austauschen. Suchen Sie uns in Köln und zögern Sie nicht, uns zu begrüßen, wenn Sie uns in der Nähe der Show sehen.
Mit Blick auf die Zukunft hoffen wir, die Mehrspielerbasis von Arena Commander so schnell wie möglich zu erweitern. Erwarten Sie in Kürze Neuigkeiten dazu. Bitte helfen Sie uns in der Zwischenzeit weiterhin, das Spiel zu testen! Ihre Twitch-Streams, CS-Tickets, Foren-Kommentare und andere Interaktionen mit dem Team haben uns zu diesem Punkt geführt, und ich hoffe, Sie können spüren, wie Ihr Beitrag es uns ermöglicht hat, das AC-Erlebnis zu verbessern. Lassen Sie Ihre Kämpfer fliegen und Ihr Feedback kommt!
Eric Peterson, Studio-Direktor
Das CIG Austin Büro hat hart an Star Citizen gearbeitet, vom Erscheinen des Patches 12.5 bis hin zur Vorbereitung auf das kommende Gamescom-Event. Hier ist ein Einblick in das, was unser Studio vor sich hat, während wir weiter daran arbeiten, den BDSSE zu liefern.
Mocap und Cinematics
Charaktere
Wir haben an unserer Pipeline für Charaktere und Takelage gearbeitet und untersucht, wie wir einige interessante Bekleidungstechnologien von Redacted Studios in (irgendwo auf dem Planeten Erde) integrieren können. Wir haben unseren Kopfscanner in Betrieb genommen und werden bald bereit sein, unsere Charaktere zu erweitern, wir haben auch Methoden zur Kopfanpassung für Spieler untersucht. Wir haben den Redacted Commercial, den Redacted II Commercial und den größeren, schlechteren Redacted III Commercial unterstützt.
Animationen
Haben den Monat damit verbracht, eine 4-wöchige weibliche Animations-Set Mocap-Sitzung zu machen, die sich auf die grundlegende Fortbewegung und FPS/Waffenset-Bewegungen konzentriert. Wir haben auch die verschiedenen Werbespots mit Motion Capture, Solving und Editing unterstützt. Außerdem kam unser eigener Sandi Gardiner vorbei und zog den Anzug für einige Motion Capture Sessions an, was für ein Trooper!
Kinematiken
Wir verfeinern das Budget und den Zeitplan für die S42 Mocap- und Performance Capture-Aufnahmen und beginnen mit dem Vorproduktionsprozess. Wo werden wir gefangen nehmen? Suchen Sie nach einer Ankündigung irgendwann in der Zukunft darüber.
Ingenieurwesen
Release 12.4 Unterstützung und Profilierung. Unterstützung beim Debuggen und Verbessern der Schiffsbewegung und Matchmaking für Release 12.5. Integration von CryEngine 3.6.3 durchgeführt und zur Prüfung eingereicht. Physik-Bugfixes. Grundlegende Live-Server-Metriken. Implementierung und Test der automatisierten Bereitstellung von Großuniversum-Clustern. Implementiertes Caching von Patch-Servern und Pre-Warming, das zusammen mit der IT eingesetzt wird. Tool-Verbesserungen und -Korrekturen, einschließlich Trackview-Korrekturen für kommerzielle Arbeiten und automatischer Import von Crytek SDK Perforce Server. PU-Planung, Star-System-Layout-Tool und PU-Prototyping. Zukünftig verbesserte Planung und Diskussion von Schiffs- und Charakterbewegungen.... Oh, und 12.5 veröffentlicht - endlich.
Design
Das Designteam von CIG Austin arbeitet hart daran, das anhaltende Universum zum Leben zu erwecken. Wir fangen klein an, bringen alle Grundfunktionen an ihren Platz und erweitern sie im Laufe der Zeit. Wir haben eine detailliertere Roadmap für die nächsten zwölf Monate der Entwicklung erstellt und sind dabei, alle Design- und Aufgabenanforderungen für diese Entwicklung abzuschließen. Natürlich dreht sich alles um die Wirtschaft und wie sie das Universum verbindet.
Inzwischen arbeiten wir hart daran, andere Bereiche des Universums zu unterstützen: die Standardisierung der Schiffsentwicklung, die Weiterentwicklung der Balance für Schiffe und Teile, die Unterstützung beim Einbringen von Schiffen in den Hangar, die Ausarbeitung der Technologie und des Designs unserer Bekleidungssets und - wie immer - die Unterstützung beim Testen und Balancieren des Luftkampfmoduls sowie die Unterstützung bei der Animation einiger Schiffsaufbauten. Es war ein arbeitsreicher Monat, aber wir lieben es zu sehen, wohin das führt, und wir hoffen, dass Sie es genießen werden.
Schiffe
Das CIG ATX Schiffsteam war SEHR damit beschäftigt, sich auf die Gamescom vorzubereiten. Obwohl ich die tatsächlichen Schiffe, die du dort sehen wirst, nicht offen legen kann, kann ich dir sagen, dass sie fantastisch sind! Allerdings blicken wir als Schiffsteam weit über die Gamescom hinaus. Die Monate August und September sehen sehr aufregend aus, da mehrere Schiffe in der Pipeline sind. Und wir hoffen, dass Ihnen die M50 gefällt - denn Chris Smith hat gerade einen tollen Job gemacht, um sie fertigzustellen.
Kunst
Nun, auf Schiffen haben wir an der m50, Mustang, Konstellation und ihren Varianten, Xian Scout, Vanduul Schiffserkundung sowie verschiedenen Komponenten gearbeitet, um in naher Zukunft eine gewisse Anpassung zu ermöglichen.
Auf der Charakterseite der Gleichung - Redigierte Werbecharaktere werden ergänzt, andere Modulcharaktere sind in Arbeit und viel Arbeit am Xian-Charakter sowie Charakteranpassungen.
Auf dem persistenten Universum oder Planetenseite der Dinge arbeiteten wir an der Raumstation Gold Horizon für Redacted und Hangar-Revamps. Darüber hinaus war die Goldhemd-Auktion ein großer Erfolg, vielen Dank an alle für Ihre weitere Unterstützung.
Freiberuflich tätig
Diesen Monat konzentrierte sich CGBot auf die Sterne - die Konstellationen, um genau zu sein! Sie bereiten das Schiff und die Varianten für den Einsatz in Hangars vor. Virtuos hat sich mit unserem Editor vertraut gemacht und sich darauf vorbereitet, mit der Arbeit an Schiffen zu beginnen, während er auch mit den Requisiten für die REDACTED-Demo weitermacht, und Rmory erstellt einige fantastische Waffenkonzepte und Spielressourcen für die REDACTED.
Auf der Auftragnehmerseite lag der Schwerpunkt vor allem auf der Erstellung von Konzepten für die REDACTED-Demo - David Brochard und Rob McKinnon haben an einigen coolen Rüstungskunstwerken gearbeitet. Inzwischen hat der neue Auftragnehmer Hugues Giboire einen 3D Xi'an Charakter entwickelt. Unsere anderen aktiven Auftragnehmer haben auf Schiffen gearbeitet - Jim Martin hat einige neue Konzepte für die Caterpillar eingereicht, Jan Urschel arbeitet am Xi'an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church entwickelt den Panther weiter und George Hull hat einige großartige neue Überarbeitungen des Collector-Konzepts geliefert".
Produktion
Darüber hinaus hatten wir auch einen PU-Gipfel in Montreal mit unseren Partnern beim BHVR und sind sehr zufrieden mit dem, was dort oben vor sich geht, ganz zu schweigen vom Wetter im Juli, das besser ist als in Austin. Wie du sehen kannst, haben wir also hart an unserem Traumspiel gearbeitet und werden weiterhin auf dem Weg zur BDSSE vorankommen. Das Team hier schätzt die ganze Unterstützung und Geduld, denn wir wissen, dass manchmal die Dinge bei der Auslieferung ein wenig daneben gehen, aber es liebt es, alle Geheimnisse der Spieleentwicklung teilen zu können, auch wenn einige Dinge etwas länger dauern. Also vielen Dank an euch alle für eure anhaltende Leidenschaft und Liebe zu diesem Spiel, es hält uns alle voller Stolz und Zufriedenheit, weil wir wissen, dass wir alle zusammen in diesem Bereich sind.
Erin Roberts, Studioleiterin
Hallo noch mal, sehr geschäftiger Monat unten auf der Farm. In diesem Monat wurde bei Foundry 42 so viel erreicht, von der Unterstützung bei der Veröffentlichung von 12.5 bis hin zur großartigen Arbeit des Teams an unserem nächsten großen Feature-Release (13) und der Gamescom. Nicht zu vergessen S42, bei dem wir wirklich große Fortschritte gemacht haben.
Der Schwerpunkt lag auf GamesCom und dem Erhalt so viel Feinschliff wie möglich in unserer Hauptniederlassung, um das Spiel von seiner besten Seite zu zeigen. (Wir haben in den letzten 6-8 Wochen zwei Sätze des Codes ausgeführt, Release 12 Branch, von dem wir 12.5 am Mittwochabend veröffentlicht haben, was hauptsächlich darauf abzielt, die Hundekämpfe stabil und ausgeglichen zu machen, und vor allem, wo die neuen Funktionen implementiert werden, aus denen wir neue Zweige machen, wenn wir kurz vor der Veröffentlichung stehen. Dies ermöglicht es uns, mit der Implementierung neuer Funktionen für das Spiel fortzufahren, ohne unsere Release-Builds mit neuem Code und neuen Daten zu destabilisieren. Also im Grunde genommen ist das, was Sie in 12.5 gesehen haben, nur die Arbeit, die in diesem Zweig passiert ist, es gibt noch viel, viel mehr, was die ganze Zeit passiert ist, die Sie bald sehen werden, wenn wir die Gamescom und die Version 13 veröffentlichen.
Ich freue mich darauf, in ein paar Wochen in Deutschland einen Haufen von euch zu treffen und ein paar wirklich coole Sachen auf der Gamescom zu zeigen, damit ich euch allen wirklich für eure Unterstützung und Geduld danken kann, während wir uns bemühen, dieses unglaubliche Universum zusammen zu schaffen.
Design
Verdammt noch mal! Ist es schon einen Monat her?
Leader Boards, Lobbysysteme, Key Bindings haben alle einen Designfokus und werden für die Veröffentlichung in 13 oder kurz danach bearbeitet. Außerdem haben wir zwei neue fantastische Spielmodi für DFM, die wir auf der Gamescom zeigen und mit 13 veröffentlichen wollen.
S42 hat in diesem Monat eine Reihe von Fortschritten gemacht. Wir haben die Kampagne mit den Autoren weiter aufgeschlüsselt und die Aufgaben sind alle für den "Vertical Slice" da draußen. Wir haben Prototypen für Landung und Start, an denen gerade gearbeitet wird. Auch auf der FPS-Seite des Spiels wird viel Arbeit geleistet, wobei KI-Verhalten, Kampf, Tarnung, Wahrnehmung, Abholung, Zielsysteme, Checkpoints und das Konversationssystem für das Spiel konzipiert und implementiert werden. Wir haben eine Reihe von Missionen, die frühzeitig weiß eingepackt sind, damit wir sie von Anfang bis Ende durchspielen können, um sicherzustellen, dass das Tempo stimmt.
Das White-Boxing auf der Panther Class Escort Dame geht wirklich gut voran, und die Idris nähert sich der Veröffentlichung von "Hangar". (Vorbehalt: Es wird nicht in den Hangar passen, also wird es einen anderen coolen Weg geben, vom Hangar aus in den Hangar zu gelangen).
Nochmals vielen Dank für die fantastische Unterstützung. Es ist ein Vergnügen, mit euch allen an einem so tollen Projekt zu arbeiten.
Programmierung
Diesen Monat haben wir unsere Entwicklungszeit in drei parallele Teams aufgeteilt, um sicherzustellen, dass wir alles liefern, was wir euch in 12.5, Gamescom zeigen wollen und euch das beste Erlebnis für die Zukunft mit S42 bieten.
Wir haben beim 12.5er Build geholfen. Abgesehen vom Gummiband haben wir versucht, einen wirklich bösen Low-Repro-Bug aufzuspüren und zu beheben, der den Kopf des Spielers ständig schütteln würde, wenn er nach dem Tod wieder auftaucht. Jedes Mal, wenn wir dachten, dass wir eine Lösung hätten, begann der Spieler stattdessen im Cockpit aufzustehen. Jedes Mal, wenn wir dachten, wir hätten den Stehkäfer mit Kopfschütteln behoben, würde er zurückkehren. Und so weiter. Wir denken, dass wir jetzt einen guten Griff haben und beheben beide Probleme jetzt für den neuesten Patch.
Wir sind sehr gespannt, was wir Ihnen auf der GamesCom zeigen werden. Es gab viel Arbeit, um das HUD zu polieren, um es freundlicher zu machen, das Radar, um es weniger überladen zu machen, Kameras, viele Audio-Verbesserungen, neue Spielmodi und vieles mehr.
Und schließlich unterstützen wir unsere Konstrukteure dabei, die vertikale Scheibe der Staffel 42 in Betrieb zu nehmen, einschließlich des Prototyps einer neuen Landemechanik, und langfristige Ziele wie die Entwicklung eines Tools, das die Einrichtung der Fahrzeuge einfacher und weniger fehleranfällig macht (was es uns ermöglicht, Schiffe und Fahrzeuge viel schneller in DFM zu integrieren), ein neues Fahrzeugzustandsystem, eine KI und, wie immer, viele Fehlerbehebungen!
Umwelt Kunst
Das Umweltteam hat diesen Monat hart daran gearbeitet, etwas Besonderes zu schaffen, wir produzieren einen neuen Standort wie nichts, was Sie bisher in Star Citizen gesehen haben. Wir haben die Architektur, die Beleuchtung und die Farbpalette in eine andere Richtung gelenkt, dies wird die bestehenden Umgebungen ergänzen - so werden wir Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue) und die neue Karte (Green) haben. Alle diese Elemente werden auch ihren Weg in die PU finden, so dass sie helfen, das Universum, in dem ihr alle leben werdet, zu konkretisieren, wenn die PU online kommt.
Wir freuen uns sehr, dass ihr es seht, alles wird auf der GamesCon und dem Release 13 vorgestellt.
Fahrzeugkunst
Das Schiffs- und Fahrzeugteam hier in der Gießerei 42 hat in diesem Monat hart gearbeitet und setzt die Arbeit an der Gladius, dem Gladiator und dem Vergelter sowie an unseren aktuellen Cap-Ship-Produktionen wie dem Javelin und dem Panther fort.
Der Gladius ist derzeit für seine Shading, Audio und Animationen eingerichtet, bevor er in die technische Einrichtungsphase geht, wo er für den Hangar vorbereitet werden kann. Wir stehen dem sehr nahe.
Der Gladiator befindet sich derzeit in seiner Graukastenphase, und der Vergelter rückt immer näher an seine letzte Graukastenphase heran.
Die laufenden Designarbeiten an der Javelin laufen parallel zur Kunstproduktion für dieses Schiff, derzeit arbeiten wir an der Bridge und der Crew-Messe für dieses Schiff, damit wir diese Räume in die Storyline für SQ42 einbinden können.
Der riesige Panther kommt auch gut voran, alle Gänge stehen kurz vor der Fertigstellung, und wir konzentrieren uns derzeit auf die Crewbaracken und Fluchtkapseln, die grau eingepackt werden sollen.
Es wurde auch viel an der Animation gearbeitet, wo neue Pilotanimationen für die Schiffscockpits in unsere Hauptniederlassung für die Gamescom gehen, und eine Reihe von Tests über Vanduul-Bewegungen sowie unsere Charakter- und Gesichtssysteme.
Audio
In diesem Monat ging es darum, das Audio dazu zu bringen, klarere Ziele und eine klarere Designrichtung zu verfolgen. Wir haben außerdem eine Auswahl von Waffengeräuschen als Prüfstand für einen neuen Ansatz bei Waffengeräuschen überarbeitet. Die Waffen, die wir bisher entwickelt haben, umfassen nun perkussive/explosive Elemente und mechanische Schichten. Die neue Herangehensweise an diese Klänge führt zu einem glaubwürdigeren und zufriedenstellenderen Ergebnis. Wir freuen uns auch, die neuen Schiffs-Flugvorbeifahrt-Klänge ab Release 13 vorstellen zu können. Wenn ein Vanduul-Schiff an Ihnen vorbeigeht, wird dieser Moment nun einen aufregenden und sorgfältig gestalteten Fly-by-Sound haben. Viele weitere Verbesserungen wurden auf breiter Front für den Sound von Star Citizen vorgenommen, also freuen Sie sich auf diese in den kommenden Monaten.
Neben den verschiedenen Verbesserungen, die wir vorgenommen haben, hat Team Audio hart an der Arbeit an gamescom-bezogenen Aufgaben gearbeitet, die wir unglaublich gerne allen zeigen möchten.
Mathieu Beaulieu, Produzentin
Der Monat Juli bringt schönes warmes Wetter nach Montreal und viel Planung!
Diesen Monat veranstaltete Behaviour einen Persistent Universe Summit, bei dem Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec und andere Leute von CIG mit[Redacted] und dem Montreal-Team zusammenkamen, um den Ansatz zum Weltbau für die PU besser und effizienter zu planen.
Der Sommer wäre ohne Käfer nicht komplett! Die Programmierung hat an vielen Bugfixes für Release 12.5 gearbeitet, die sich auf das Visier, die Arena Commander Benutzeroberfläche sowie den Asteroid Hangar beziehen.
Die Konzeptphase für den Origin 890 Jump ist abgeschlossen!
Das Abonnenten-Flair für Juli ist einsatzbereit, und die Flair-Objekte für August und September sind in Arbeit.
Auch die Teams für Leveldesign, Kunst, Audio und Programmierung haben hart daran gearbeitet, die ursprünglichen drei Hangars zu überarbeiten. Sie befinden sich nun in der Debugging-/Polierphase und die Hangars sehen immer glatter aus.
Eine galaktische Aufwertung ist ebenfalls im Gange! Das Designteam hat die Wissenschaft in die aktuellen Sternensysteme integriert. Sie waren auch hart bei der Planung der ersten internen Freigabe von Planetenseiten.
Das UI-Team entwickelt sich weiter mit verschiedenen mobiGlas Mock-Ups, sowie einem Redesign des aktuellen Pausenbildschirms, der Flair-Objekt-Oberfläche und dem gelegentlichen Bug Squishing. Sie haben auch alle deine Beiträge im Star Citizen UI/UX-Thread gelesen (obwohl sie (noch) nicht jeden Beitrag beantworten können). Lasst die tollen Ideen kommen!
Austin Goddard, Produzentin
Der Juli ist gekommen und gegangen, aber nicht ohne Fortschritte an allen Fronten des CGBot-Teams.
Wir werden weiterhin alle Aufgaben erledigen, die notwendig sind, um Ihnen die Constellation-Flotte zu bringen. Einer unserer Schwerpunkte bei Constellation ist es, eines der Schiffe in den Luftkampf zu schicken. Die Aufgabe war nicht einfach, aber dank unserer Freunde von CIG ATX sind wir auf dem besten Weg, die Dinge in den nächsten Tagen abzuschließen.
Zusammen mit Constellation arbeiten wir auch an Idris. Die individuelle Detaillierung jedes Raumes ist ein langer Prozess, aber wir glauben, dass es sich lohnen wird, wenn man jeden Zentimeter dieses Schiffes erkunden kann. Die Entwicklung auf Idris wird bis August fortgesetzt.
Wie bereits im letzten Update erwähnt, haben wir Anfang dieses Monats zwei Charaktere fertig gestellt. Wir freuen uns auf die zukünftige Charakterarbeit und allein der Name unseres nächsten Charakters hat CGBot begeistert. Wir hoffen, dass Sie mit diesen Charakteren und Schiffen Spaß an der Navigation durch die Galaxie haben werden.
(Redigiert)
Grüße Stern-Bürger! Juli war ein wirklich solider Monat für das FPS-Team hier bei[REDACTED]. Zwischen den epischen Nerf-Gun-Kämpfen, die zufällig im Büro ausgebrochen sind, haben wir Features und Inhalte ausgeklammert, als gäbe es kein Morgen mehr und das FPS-Modul fängt wirklich an, zusammenzukommen.
Die Ingenieure und Designer haben alle Waffen und Gadgets implementiert. Wir haben alles, was Sie normalerweise erwarten würden, wie Pistolen, Gewehre, Granaten, etc..... aber es gibt auch einige andere einzigartige Leckerbissen, die auch dabei sind. Energiebasierte Waffen, Gegenmaßnahmen wie EMPs und einige andere, die ich dir im Moment nicht verderben will! Oh und wir haben jetzt Taschenlampen.... Get hype! Du kannst jetzt im Dunkeln sehen!
Mehr Arbeit wurde investiert, um die Pistole auf EVA vorzubereiten, und es ist sehr nahe dran, fertig zu werden. Das neue Modell wird derzeit aufgerüstet und die VFX-Jungs haben die Effekte optimiert und optimiert.
Es wurde viel an dem Visier-HUD für FPS gearbeitet. Ein großer Teil der Arbeiten wurde mit dem HUD-System integriert, das derzeit für Schiffe eingesetzt wird. Wir haben auch an einem Missionszielsystem gearbeitet, das sich mit dem Visier-HUD verbindet.
Die Animatoren haben sich bemüht, alle neuen Gegenstände und Waffen aufzurüsten und bereit zu machen, zusammen mit Charakteranimationen, die sie begleiten. Auch in Austin gab es im vergangenen Monat viele neue Bewegungsaufnahmen, darunter auch für das FPS-Modul. Wir haben Animationen für Hitreaktionen, Todessequenzen und einige wirklich coole Zero G Sachen, von denen du in Zukunft mehr hören solltest.
Auf der Audio-Seite werden Soundeffekte für alle Waffen und Gegenstände erstellt und poliert. Die meisten von ihnen sind eine schöne Mischung aus Mechanik und einem Sci-Fi-Energiegefühl. Wir wissen, dass gute Sounds für lustige Waffen sorgen, also versuchen wir wirklich, sie dazu zu bringen, knackig und kraftvoll zu klingen.
Das Art Team hat Vermögenswerte für die Umgebung der Raumstation geschaffen. Einige neue Shader und Werkzeuge kamen gerade erst in die Pipe, was es ihnen ermöglicht hat, die Optik noch weiter zu verbessern und einige wirklich schön aussehende Materialien zu erhalten, die vorher nicht möglich waren. Ja, das ist richtig. Das Spiel wird noch besser aussehen als bisher!
Schließlich haben wir bei einigen der Netzwerk- und Matchmaking-Probleme von Arena Commander geholfen. Einer unserer Ingenieure ist eine Art Matchmaking-Superstar. Ich nenne ihn gerne den Millionärs-Matchmaker.... hi[REDACTED], danke für die ganze harte Arbeit!
Das war's dann auch schon für diesen Monat, liebe Sternenbürger. Wir sehen uns in einem Monat! (REDAKTIERT) raus!
P.S. - Ich brauche wirklich eine Nerf-Waffe. Meine derzeitige Politik des passiven Widerstands scheitert an dem immer weiter eskalierenden Wettrüsten.
Benoit Beauséjour, Gründer und Gründer
Keine Zeit, den sonnigen Montrealer Sommer für das Plattformteam zu genießen!
Neue Schiffsseiten & Viewer
Die neuen Schiffsseiten haben die meisten unserer Zyklen in Anspruch genommen, da wir den Datenrahmen und die Ansichten festgelegt haben, die wir benötigen, um geeignete Schiffsspezifikationen vorzulegen, damit die Spieler den Schiffskatalog durchsuchen können. Dazu gehört eine benutzerdefinierte Management-Konsole zur Verwaltung von Spezifikationsdaten für jede Schiffsvariante und jedes Chassis sowie API-Endpunkte zur Steuerung des Holo Viewer und der Tech Overview für alle aktuellen Schiffe.
Es gab eine große Datenverwaltungsaufgabe, als wir die Erfassung von über 300 NEUEN Schiffsscreenshots für alle verfügbaren Schiffe aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln sowie die Erfassung und den Export der schiffstechnischen Daten koordinierten. Einige Beispiele sind in diesem Bericht enthalten.
Dieses große Refactoring ist seit einiger Zeit in Arbeit, hat sich aber in den letzten Wochen wirklich zusammengeführt, als wir den neuen WebGL Holo Viewer in das Datenmodell integriert haben. Der neue Viewer ermöglicht es Ihnen, Hardpoints, Antrieb und POI direkt auf dem Schiff zu durchsuchen und den Inhalt der Schiffsverladung im 3D-Raum zu sehen. Darüber hinaus haben wir einen vollständigen 3D-POI-Editor entwickelt, der es uns ermöglicht, POI-Marker zu bestimmten Bereichen jedes Schiffes hinzuzufügen und/oder die von uns importierten Daten zu korrigieren. Es ist sehr praktisch, um POIs auf Konzept-Schiffen anzuzeigen, die die CryEngine noch nicht erreicht haben. Es bleibt noch viel zu tun, um diesen Prozess vollständig in die Schiffspipeline zu integrieren; aber wir hoffen, dass er bald richtig integriert wird!
Wir wollten auch in der Lage sein, den Zustand jedes Schiffes online korrekt zu melden. Ist dieses Schiff im Hangar? Kann ich es fliegen? Ist dieses Schiff derzeit im Konzept? Dieses neue Framework wird es uns ermöglichen, die Spielmodulseiten so zu modifizieren, dass sie den Zustand jedes Schiffes in Bezug auf jedes Modul berücksichtigen.
Dieser Satz von Tools und Datenmodellen ist unser erstes Stück der Galactapedia, da alle Schiffsdaten vollständig vom Speicher getrennt sind und auch verwendet werden, um Teile dieses Moduls zu steuern, wenn wir näher dran sind, es online zu bringen. Wir erwarten, dass wir in naher Zukunft die gleiche Arbeit für Planeten und Systeme übernehmen werden.
Um die neuen Schiffsseiten richtig darzustellen, haben wir auch das gesamte Lager überarbeitet, um die Vision des Herstellers und der Schiffe richtig wiederzugeben. Hoffentlich wird sich dieser neue Modus zum Stöbern mehr fiktiv anfühlen und die Tiefe des Star Citizen-Universums angemessen widerspiegeln.
Du solltest die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit sehr bald online sehen! Wir sind begeistert!
Unternehmen fallen lassen zwei
Die Konzeptarbeit an den Funktionen für Organizations Drop Two wurde fortgesetzt. Wir planen die Einführung eines Tools speziell für Spieler mit der Rolle "Operations", das es ihnen ermöglicht, Jobs & Divisions innerhalb ihrer Organisationen zu verwalten. Dieses Tool bringt hauptsächlich die Funktion der Struktur in Ihre Gruppe und wird eine sehr gute Möglichkeit sein, sie in Untereinheiten zu organisieren. Diese Funktion in Verbindung mit den Funktionen von "Jobs", die wie ein Tag-System funktionieren, erleichtert das Filtern und Verwalten von Mitgliedern. Wir haben einige sehr coole Visualisierungsideen an dieser Stelle und hoffen, Ihnen bald einige davon zeigen zu können!
Wir haben auch einige Fortschritte bei der Konzeption einiger Rekrutierungswerkzeuge für Unternehmen gemacht, um Führungskräften bei der Suche nach Mitgliedern zu helfen. Wir hoffen, dass wir diese in die Liste aufnehmen können.
Alles in allem ein toller Monat!
Matthew Jack, Gründer und Gründer
Juli war ein wichtiger Monat für Moon Collider, da wir die Größe unseres Teams deutlich erhöht haben, was es uns ermöglichen wird, den KI-Bedarf für Star Citizen in Zukunft besser zu decken und die anderen Teams bei der Arbeit an weiteren KI-schweren Features zu unterstützen. Wir waren sehr zufrieden mit Ihrer Antwort auf das Vanduul Swarm Gameplay, und unsere neuen Teammitglieder werden uns wirklich helfen, weiterhin die erstklassige KI zu liefern, die Sie alle erwarten, wenn Sie Star Citizen spielen.
Wir sind seit einiger Zeit ein Team von dreieinhalb Personen, und jetzt haben wir den Sprung auf sechs geschafft, mit einem Kern von vier Vollzeit-Entwicklern und zwei Unterstützern in Teilzeit. Also, wer sind die neuen Gesichter?
Adam und Diana haben beide die warmen Küsten von Perth, Australien, verlassen und beschlossen, das Klima von Edinburgh zu trotzen, um Teil des Kythera-Teams zu werden. Beide haben zuvor bei Crytek als Programmierer bzw. Projektmanager gearbeitet. Adam wird Vollzeit mit uns arbeiten, um unser Kythera-KI-System nahtlos in die animierten Charaktere von CryEngine einzubinden, während Diana Teilzeitunterstützung bietet, die administrative Aufgaben übernimmt, damit der Rest des Teams mehr Zeit damit verbringen kann, großartige neue Funktionen ins Spiel zu bringen und an euch alle zu verteilen.
Jurie ist eine erfahrene Entwicklerin, die zuvor bei Rockstar Games gearbeitet hat. Er war in den letzten Monaten die zusätzliche "Hälfte" und hat für uns an unserem Debugging-Toolset gearbeitet. Jedes System ist nur so gut wie seine Werkzeuge; das gilt insbesondere für die KI, und mit Juries Hilfe werden wir wirklich das Mögliche vorantreiben (mehr dazu unten!) Er wird weiterhin in Teilzeit aus Frankreich arbeiten und Kytheras Debugging- und Visualisierungsfunktionen verbessern, so dass es für uns und alle Star Citizen-Teams einfacher ist, zu verstehen, was in den virtuellen Köpfen der KI vor sich geht. Dies wird uns helfen, weiterhin zuversichtlich zu sein, dass die KI robust ist, und vor allem, Spaß am Spielen mit und gegen die KI!
Aber genug mit dem Appell. Was haben wir diesen Monat gemacht?
Wir haben unsere Arbeit fortgesetzt, um die Luftkampf-KI auf dem Server laufen zu lassen, und das entwickelt sich gut. Es gibt noch mehr zu tun, um es robuster zu machen, aber wir sind zufrieden mit dem, was wir bisher erreicht haben.
Auf der FPS-Seite haben wir die KI weiter verbessert, wobei wir uns besonders auf ihre Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten konzentriert haben, wie z.B. die Einbeziehung von Sichtlinieninformationen, um festzustellen, ob sie den Spieler sehen können, und die Sammlung grundlegender Informationen über alle Charaktere, die sich in der Nähe befinden. Ihre Kampffähigkeiten sind im Moment noch sehr grundlegend, aber mit der Grundlage, die wir hinzufügen, können wir anfangen, anspruchsvollere Verhaltensweisen zu entwickeln.
Wir haben in diesem Monat einige wichtige Verbesserungen an unserem Toolset vorgenommen, wobei das Hauptmerkmal die Möglichkeit ist, detaillierte Daten darüber aufzuzeichnen, was die KI während der Ausführung des Spiels tut, und es dann später mit visuellen Debugginginformationen innerhalb der Spielwelt wiederzugeben. Dies ist ein äußerst nützliches Feature für Designer, um zurückgehen und genau untersuchen zu können, was die KI in verschiedenen Situationen während eines Playthrough gemacht hat, so dass sie Möglichkeiten finden können, ihr Verhalten zu verfeinern, um ihnen mehr Spaß beim Spielen zu machen. Es ist auch sehr praktisch, um Fehler aufzuspüren!
Ein großes Merkmal, dem wir uns langsam ernsthaft widmen, ist das persistente Universum und die Gestaltung, wie die KI funktionieren muss, insbesondere auf dem Planeten. Es gibt hier viele große Herausforderungen und wir sind alle sehr ehrgeizig mit dem, was wir erreichen wollen, so dass wir viel Zeit mit der Designarbeit in diesem Bereich verbringen werden, damit wir es richtig machen.
Schließlich nahm sich das gesamte Team Anfang des Monats eine Auszeit von Star Citizen, um an der Game/AI Conference in Wien teilzunehmen. Dies war eine großartige Gelegenheit, mit anderen KI-Entwicklern zu sprechen und mehr über die KI-Technologie zu erfahren, die für andere Spiele entwickelt wird. Wir sind leidenschaftlich daran interessiert, Kythera auf dem neuesten Stand der Spiel-KI zu halten, und diese Konferenz ist eines der wichtigsten jährlichen Treffen für Entwickler von Spiel-KI, daher war es wirklich toll, dass wir alle teilnehmen konnten. Es war auch eine Gelegenheit für unser neu erweitertes Team, alle zur gleichen Zeit am gleichen Ort zu sein, was es uns ermöglichte, dieses ausgezeichnete Mannschaftsfoto im Prater-Vergnügungspark in Wien zu machen. Und ja, ja, ja, wir denken, dass dieser Clown auch ziemlich beängstigend ist.
Juli war ein großer Monat für Star Citizen! Der lange Kampf mit dem Gummiband testete manchmal unsere Entschlossenheit, aber wir haben endlich den Sieg errungen! Wir sind begeistert von den Ergebnissen unserer gesamten Arbeit: Der Multiplayer des Arena Commander spielt so, wie wir es ursprünglich wollten.
Wir sind bestrebt, andere Teile des größeren Spiels zu integrieren.... einschließlich derjenigen, die gleichzeitig in unseren Studios und Outsourcing-Partnern entwickelt wurden! Im August werden mehrere große Events stattfinden, darunter Chris' Präsentation auf der Gamescom und Präsentationen auf der PAX East und Dragon*Con. Erwarten Sie, in den kommenden Wochen einige coole Teile des Star Citizen Universums zu sehen!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer, Dogfight Producer
Grüße Bürger,
An dieser Stelle kann man wohl sagen, dass Sie bereits viel von dem wissen, worauf sich Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica konzentriert hat! Unsere Ingenieure haben das Gummibandproblem seit dem Release 12.4 bearbeitet, und wir sind so glücklich, dass die Lösung endlich da ist. Die Beseitigung des Gummibandes (und damit auch vieler anderer Probleme) beinhaltete, dass mehrere Aspekte des Arena Commander (einschließlich unseres sehr komplexen Physiksystems) auseinander genommen, alle Teile untersucht und dann hoffentlich wieder richtig zusammengefügt wurden. Aber das erste Wort ist, dass sie es tun, und 12.5 ist das bisher beste Multiplayer-Erlebnis!
Wenn du an einigen sehr spezifischen Details über diesen Prozess interessiert bist, schau dir bitte die "Patch-Update"-Posts an, die während jeder Woche der Entwicklung von 12.5 veröffentlicht werden. Um es kurz zu machen, jedes einzelne Mitglied des Santa Monica-Teams ging darüber hinaus, um dieses Ding herauszubekommen, sei es durch Spieltests in seiner Freizeit oder durch Arbeiten bis in die frühen Morgenstunden, um Physik-Code neu zu schreiben.
Arena Commander ist nicht das Einzige, was sich diesen Monat erweitert: Das Büro selbst wächst. Wir sind dabei, das Community-Team (und einige andere) in zusätzliche Büroräume nebenan zu verlegen, was uns Raum geben wird, das Team hier zu erweitern. Eine Sache, die uns erlaubt, ist die Verlegung der Schiffsproduktionspipeline nach Santa Monica. Kami reiste letzte Woche nach Austin, um an diesem Übergang zu arbeiten, der Chris mehr Transparenz darüber geben wird, wo sich ein bestimmtes Schiff zu jeder Zeit befindet.
Wir haben uns auch auf unsere Demo zur Gamescom 2014 vorbereitet, die in etwas mehr als zwei Wochen stattfinden wird. Sandi und ihr Team haben bei der Planung der Veranstaltung hervorragende Arbeit geleistet, wo Sie die Möglichkeit haben, einen Teil des Teams hinter Arena Commander zu treffen. Wir sind begierig darauf, mit den Geldgebern zusammenzuhängen, die das alles möglich machen und einige Kriegsgeschichten austauschen. Suchen Sie uns in Köln und zögern Sie nicht, uns zu begrüßen, wenn Sie uns in der Nähe der Show sehen.
Mit Blick auf die Zukunft hoffen wir, die Mehrspielerbasis von Arena Commander so schnell wie möglich zu erweitern. Erwarten Sie in Kürze Neuigkeiten dazu. Bitte helfen Sie uns in der Zwischenzeit weiterhin, das Spiel zu testen! Ihre Twitch-Streams, CS-Tickets, Foren-Kommentare und andere Interaktionen mit dem Team haben uns zu diesem Punkt geführt, und ich hoffe, Sie können spüren, wie Ihr Beitrag es uns ermöglicht hat, das AC-Erlebnis zu verbessern. Lassen Sie Ihre Kämpfer fliegen und Ihr Feedback kommt!
Eric Peterson, Studio-Direktor
Das CIG Austin Büro hat hart an Star Citizen gearbeitet, vom Erscheinen des Patches 12.5 bis hin zur Vorbereitung auf das kommende Gamescom-Event. Hier ist ein Einblick in das, was unser Studio vor sich hat, während wir weiter daran arbeiten, den BDSSE zu liefern.
Mocap und Cinematics
Charaktere
Wir haben an unserer Pipeline für Charaktere und Takelage gearbeitet und untersucht, wie wir einige interessante Bekleidungstechnologien von Redacted Studios in (irgendwo auf dem Planeten Erde) integrieren können. Wir haben unseren Kopfscanner in Betrieb genommen und werden bald bereit sein, unsere Charaktere zu erweitern, wir haben auch Methoden zur Kopfanpassung für Spieler untersucht. Wir haben den Redacted Commercial, den Redacted II Commercial und den größeren, schlechteren Redacted III Commercial unterstützt.
Animationen
Haben den Monat damit verbracht, eine 4-wöchige weibliche Animations-Set Mocap-Sitzung zu machen, die sich auf die grundlegende Fortbewegung und FPS/Waffenset-Bewegungen konzentriert. Wir haben auch die verschiedenen Werbespots mit Motion Capture, Solving und Editing unterstützt. Außerdem kam unser eigener Sandi Gardiner vorbei und zog den Anzug für einige Motion Capture Sessions an, was für ein Trooper!
Kinematiken
Wir verfeinern das Budget und den Zeitplan für die S42 Mocap- und Performance Capture-Aufnahmen und beginnen mit dem Vorproduktionsprozess. Wo werden wir gefangen nehmen? Suchen Sie nach einer Ankündigung irgendwann in der Zukunft darüber.
Ingenieurwesen
Release 12.4 Unterstützung und Profilierung. Unterstützung beim Debuggen und Verbessern der Schiffsbewegung und Matchmaking für Release 12.5. Integration von CryEngine 3.6.3 durchgeführt und zur Prüfung eingereicht. Physik-Bugfixes. Grundlegende Live-Server-Metriken. Implementierung und Test der automatisierten Bereitstellung von Großuniversum-Clustern. Implementiertes Caching von Patch-Servern und Pre-Warming, das zusammen mit der IT eingesetzt wird. Tool-Verbesserungen und -Korrekturen, einschließlich Trackview-Korrekturen für kommerzielle Arbeiten und automatischer Import von Crytek SDK Perforce Server. PU-Planung, Star-System-Layout-Tool und PU-Prototyping. Zukünftig verbesserte Planung und Diskussion von Schiffs- und Charakterbewegungen.... Oh, und 12.5 veröffentlicht - endlich.
Design
Das Designteam von CIG Austin arbeitet hart daran, das anhaltende Universum zum Leben zu erwecken. Wir fangen klein an, bringen alle Grundfunktionen an ihren Platz und erweitern sie im Laufe der Zeit. Wir haben eine detailliertere Roadmap für die nächsten zwölf Monate der Entwicklung erstellt und sind dabei, alle Design- und Aufgabenanforderungen für diese Entwicklung abzuschließen. Natürlich dreht sich alles um die Wirtschaft und wie sie das Universum verbindet.
Inzwischen arbeiten wir hart daran, andere Bereiche des Universums zu unterstützen: die Standardisierung der Schiffsentwicklung, die Weiterentwicklung der Balance für Schiffe und Teile, die Unterstützung beim Einbringen von Schiffen in den Hangar, die Ausarbeitung der Technologie und des Designs unserer Bekleidungssets und - wie immer - die Unterstützung beim Testen und Balancieren des Luftkampfmoduls sowie die Unterstützung bei der Animation einiger Schiffsaufbauten. Es war ein arbeitsreicher Monat, aber wir lieben es zu sehen, wohin das führt, und wir hoffen, dass Sie es genießen werden.
Schiffe
Das CIG ATX Schiffsteam war SEHR damit beschäftigt, sich auf die Gamescom vorzubereiten. Obwohl ich die tatsächlichen Schiffe, die du dort sehen wirst, nicht offen legen kann, kann ich dir sagen, dass sie fantastisch sind! Allerdings blicken wir als Schiffsteam weit über die Gamescom hinaus. Die Monate August und September sehen sehr aufregend aus, da mehrere Schiffe in der Pipeline sind. Und wir hoffen, dass Ihnen die M50 gefällt - denn Chris Smith hat gerade einen tollen Job gemacht, um sie fertigzustellen.
Kunst
Nun, auf Schiffen haben wir an der m50, Mustang, Konstellation und ihren Varianten, Xian Scout, Vanduul Schiffserkundung sowie verschiedenen Komponenten gearbeitet, um in naher Zukunft eine gewisse Anpassung zu ermöglichen.
Auf der Charakterseite der Gleichung - Redigierte Werbecharaktere werden ergänzt, andere Modulcharaktere sind in Arbeit und viel Arbeit am Xian-Charakter sowie Charakteranpassungen.
Auf dem persistenten Universum oder Planetenseite der Dinge arbeiteten wir an der Raumstation Gold Horizon für Redacted und Hangar-Revamps. Darüber hinaus war die Goldhemd-Auktion ein großer Erfolg, vielen Dank an alle für Ihre weitere Unterstützung.
Freiberuflich tätig
Diesen Monat konzentrierte sich CGBot auf die Sterne - die Konstellationen, um genau zu sein! Sie bereiten das Schiff und die Varianten für den Einsatz in Hangars vor. Virtuos hat sich mit unserem Editor vertraut gemacht und sich darauf vorbereitet, mit der Arbeit an Schiffen zu beginnen, während er auch mit den Requisiten für die REDACTED-Demo weitermacht, und Rmory erstellt einige fantastische Waffenkonzepte und Spielressourcen für die REDACTED.
Auf der Auftragnehmerseite lag der Schwerpunkt vor allem auf der Erstellung von Konzepten für die REDACTED-Demo - David Brochard und Rob McKinnon haben an einigen coolen Rüstungskunstwerken gearbeitet. Inzwischen hat der neue Auftragnehmer Hugues Giboire einen 3D Xi'an Charakter entwickelt. Unsere anderen aktiven Auftragnehmer haben auf Schiffen gearbeitet - Jim Martin hat einige neue Konzepte für die Caterpillar eingereicht, Jan Urschel arbeitet am Xi'an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church entwickelt den Panther weiter und George Hull hat einige großartige neue Überarbeitungen des Collector-Konzepts geliefert".
Produktion
Darüber hinaus hatten wir auch einen PU-Gipfel in Montreal mit unseren Partnern beim BHVR und sind sehr zufrieden mit dem, was dort oben vor sich geht, ganz zu schweigen vom Wetter im Juli, das besser ist als in Austin. Wie du sehen kannst, haben wir also hart an unserem Traumspiel gearbeitet und werden weiterhin auf dem Weg zur BDSSE vorankommen. Das Team hier schätzt die ganze Unterstützung und Geduld, denn wir wissen, dass manchmal die Dinge bei der Auslieferung ein wenig daneben gehen, aber es liebt es, alle Geheimnisse der Spieleentwicklung teilen zu können, auch wenn einige Dinge etwas länger dauern. Also vielen Dank an euch alle für eure anhaltende Leidenschaft und Liebe zu diesem Spiel, es hält uns alle voller Stolz und Zufriedenheit, weil wir wissen, dass wir alle zusammen in diesem Bereich sind.
Erin Roberts, Studioleiterin
Hallo noch mal, sehr geschäftiger Monat unten auf der Farm. In diesem Monat wurde bei Foundry 42 so viel erreicht, von der Unterstützung bei der Veröffentlichung von 12.5 bis hin zur großartigen Arbeit des Teams an unserem nächsten großen Feature-Release (13) und der Gamescom. Nicht zu vergessen S42, bei dem wir wirklich große Fortschritte gemacht haben.
Der Schwerpunkt lag auf GamesCom und dem Erhalt so viel Feinschliff wie möglich in unserer Hauptniederlassung, um das Spiel von seiner besten Seite zu zeigen. (Wir haben in den letzten 6-8 Wochen zwei Sätze des Codes ausgeführt, Release 12 Branch, von dem wir 12.5 am Mittwochabend veröffentlicht haben, was hauptsächlich darauf abzielt, die Hundekämpfe stabil und ausgeglichen zu machen, und vor allem, wo die neuen Funktionen implementiert werden, aus denen wir neue Zweige machen, wenn wir kurz vor der Veröffentlichung stehen. Dies ermöglicht es uns, mit der Implementierung neuer Funktionen für das Spiel fortzufahren, ohne unsere Release-Builds mit neuem Code und neuen Daten zu destabilisieren. Also im Grunde genommen ist das, was Sie in 12.5 gesehen haben, nur die Arbeit, die in diesem Zweig passiert ist, es gibt noch viel, viel mehr, was die ganze Zeit passiert ist, die Sie bald sehen werden, wenn wir die Gamescom und die Version 13 veröffentlichen.
Ich freue mich darauf, in ein paar Wochen in Deutschland einen Haufen von euch zu treffen und ein paar wirklich coole Sachen auf der Gamescom zu zeigen, damit ich euch allen wirklich für eure Unterstützung und Geduld danken kann, während wir uns bemühen, dieses unglaubliche Universum zusammen zu schaffen.
Design
Verdammt noch mal! Ist es schon einen Monat her?
Leader Boards, Lobbysysteme, Key Bindings haben alle einen Designfokus und werden für die Veröffentlichung in 13 oder kurz danach bearbeitet. Außerdem haben wir zwei neue fantastische Spielmodi für DFM, die wir auf der Gamescom zeigen und mit 13 veröffentlichen wollen.
S42 hat in diesem Monat eine Reihe von Fortschritten gemacht. Wir haben die Kampagne mit den Autoren weiter aufgeschlüsselt und die Aufgaben sind alle für den "Vertical Slice" da draußen. Wir haben Prototypen für Landung und Start, an denen gerade gearbeitet wird. Auch auf der FPS-Seite des Spiels wird viel Arbeit geleistet, wobei KI-Verhalten, Kampf, Tarnung, Wahrnehmung, Abholung, Zielsysteme, Checkpoints und das Konversationssystem für das Spiel konzipiert und implementiert werden. Wir haben eine Reihe von Missionen, die frühzeitig weiß eingepackt sind, damit wir sie von Anfang bis Ende durchspielen können, um sicherzustellen, dass das Tempo stimmt.
Das White-Boxing auf der Panther Class Escort Dame geht wirklich gut voran, und die Idris nähert sich der Veröffentlichung von "Hangar". (Vorbehalt: Es wird nicht in den Hangar passen, also wird es einen anderen coolen Weg geben, vom Hangar aus in den Hangar zu gelangen).
Nochmals vielen Dank für die fantastische Unterstützung. Es ist ein Vergnügen, mit euch allen an einem so tollen Projekt zu arbeiten.
Programmierung
Diesen Monat haben wir unsere Entwicklungszeit in drei parallele Teams aufgeteilt, um sicherzustellen, dass wir alles liefern, was wir euch in 12.5, Gamescom zeigen wollen und euch das beste Erlebnis für die Zukunft mit S42 bieten.
Wir haben beim 12.5er Build geholfen. Abgesehen vom Gummiband haben wir versucht, einen wirklich bösen Low-Repro-Bug aufzuspüren und zu beheben, der den Kopf des Spielers ständig schütteln würde, wenn er nach dem Tod wieder auftaucht. Jedes Mal, wenn wir dachten, dass wir eine Lösung hätten, begann der Spieler stattdessen im Cockpit aufzustehen. Jedes Mal, wenn wir dachten, wir hätten den Stehkäfer mit Kopfschütteln behoben, würde er zurückkehren. Und so weiter. Wir denken, dass wir jetzt einen guten Griff haben und beheben beide Probleme jetzt für den neuesten Patch.
Wir sind sehr gespannt, was wir Ihnen auf der GamesCom zeigen werden. Es gab viel Arbeit, um das HUD zu polieren, um es freundlicher zu machen, das Radar, um es weniger überladen zu machen, Kameras, viele Audio-Verbesserungen, neue Spielmodi und vieles mehr.
Und schließlich unterstützen wir unsere Konstrukteure dabei, die vertikale Scheibe der Staffel 42 in Betrieb zu nehmen, einschließlich des Prototyps einer neuen Landemechanik, und langfristige Ziele wie die Entwicklung eines Tools, das die Einrichtung der Fahrzeuge einfacher und weniger fehleranfällig macht (was es uns ermöglicht, Schiffe und Fahrzeuge viel schneller in DFM zu integrieren), ein neues Fahrzeugzustandsystem, eine KI und, wie immer, viele Fehlerbehebungen!
Umwelt Kunst
Das Umweltteam hat diesen Monat hart daran gearbeitet, etwas Besonderes zu schaffen, wir produzieren einen neuen Standort wie nichts, was Sie bisher in Star Citizen gesehen haben. Wir haben die Architektur, die Beleuchtung und die Farbpalette in eine andere Richtung gelenkt, dies wird die bestehenden Umgebungen ergänzen - so werden wir Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue) und die neue Karte (Green) haben. Alle diese Elemente werden auch ihren Weg in die PU finden, so dass sie helfen, das Universum, in dem ihr alle leben werdet, zu konkretisieren, wenn die PU online kommt.
Wir freuen uns sehr, dass ihr es seht, alles wird auf der GamesCon und dem Release 13 vorgestellt.
Fahrzeugkunst
Das Schiffs- und Fahrzeugteam hier in der Gießerei 42 hat in diesem Monat hart gearbeitet und setzt die Arbeit an der Gladius, dem Gladiator und dem Vergelter sowie an unseren aktuellen Cap-Ship-Produktionen wie dem Javelin und dem Panther fort.
Der Gladius ist derzeit für seine Shading, Audio und Animationen eingerichtet, bevor er in die technische Einrichtungsphase geht, wo er für den Hangar vorbereitet werden kann. Wir stehen dem sehr nahe.
Der Gladiator befindet sich derzeit in seiner Graukastenphase, und der Vergelter rückt immer näher an seine letzte Graukastenphase heran.
Die laufenden Designarbeiten an der Javelin laufen parallel zur Kunstproduktion für dieses Schiff, derzeit arbeiten wir an der Bridge und der Crew-Messe für dieses Schiff, damit wir diese Räume in die Storyline für SQ42 einbinden können.
Der riesige Panther kommt auch gut voran, alle Gänge stehen kurz vor der Fertigstellung, und wir konzentrieren uns derzeit auf die Crewbaracken und Fluchtkapseln, die grau eingepackt werden sollen.
Es wurde auch viel an der Animation gearbeitet, wo neue Pilotanimationen für die Schiffscockpits in unsere Hauptniederlassung für die Gamescom gehen, und eine Reihe von Tests über Vanduul-Bewegungen sowie unsere Charakter- und Gesichtssysteme.
Audio
In diesem Monat ging es darum, das Audio dazu zu bringen, klarere Ziele und eine klarere Designrichtung zu verfolgen. Wir haben außerdem eine Auswahl von Waffengeräuschen als Prüfstand für einen neuen Ansatz bei Waffengeräuschen überarbeitet. Die Waffen, die wir bisher entwickelt haben, umfassen nun perkussive/explosive Elemente und mechanische Schichten. Die neue Herangehensweise an diese Klänge führt zu einem glaubwürdigeren und zufriedenstellenderen Ergebnis. Wir freuen uns auch, die neuen Schiffs-Flugvorbeifahrt-Klänge ab Release 13 vorstellen zu können. Wenn ein Vanduul-Schiff an Ihnen vorbeigeht, wird dieser Moment nun einen aufregenden und sorgfältig gestalteten Fly-by-Sound haben. Viele weitere Verbesserungen wurden auf breiter Front für den Sound von Star Citizen vorgenommen, also freuen Sie sich auf diese in den kommenden Monaten.
Neben den verschiedenen Verbesserungen, die wir vorgenommen haben, hat Team Audio hart an der Arbeit an gamescom-bezogenen Aufgaben gearbeitet, die wir unglaublich gerne allen zeigen möchten.
Mathieu Beaulieu, Produzentin
Der Monat Juli bringt schönes warmes Wetter nach Montreal und viel Planung!
Diesen Monat veranstaltete Behaviour einen Persistent Universe Summit, bei dem Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec und andere Leute von CIG mit[Redacted] und dem Montreal-Team zusammenkamen, um den Ansatz zum Weltbau für die PU besser und effizienter zu planen.
Der Sommer wäre ohne Käfer nicht komplett! Die Programmierung hat an vielen Bugfixes für Release 12.5 gearbeitet, die sich auf das Visier, die Arena Commander Benutzeroberfläche sowie den Asteroid Hangar beziehen.
Die Konzeptphase für den Origin 890 Jump ist abgeschlossen!
Das Abonnenten-Flair für Juli ist einsatzbereit, und die Flair-Objekte für August und September sind in Arbeit.
Auch die Teams für Leveldesign, Kunst, Audio und Programmierung haben hart daran gearbeitet, die ursprünglichen drei Hangars zu überarbeiten. Sie befinden sich nun in der Debugging-/Polierphase und die Hangars sehen immer glatter aus.
Eine galaktische Aufwertung ist ebenfalls im Gange! Das Designteam hat die Wissenschaft in die aktuellen Sternensysteme integriert. Sie waren auch hart bei der Planung der ersten internen Freigabe von Planetenseiten.
Das UI-Team entwickelt sich weiter mit verschiedenen mobiGlas Mock-Ups, sowie einem Redesign des aktuellen Pausenbildschirms, der Flair-Objekt-Oberfläche und dem gelegentlichen Bug Squishing. Sie haben auch alle deine Beiträge im Star Citizen UI/UX-Thread gelesen (obwohl sie (noch) nicht jeden Beitrag beantworten können). Lasst die tollen Ideen kommen!
Austin Goddard, Produzentin
Der Juli ist gekommen und gegangen, aber nicht ohne Fortschritte an allen Fronten des CGBot-Teams.
Wir werden weiterhin alle Aufgaben erledigen, die notwendig sind, um Ihnen die Constellation-Flotte zu bringen. Einer unserer Schwerpunkte bei Constellation ist es, eines der Schiffe in den Luftkampf zu schicken. Die Aufgabe war nicht einfach, aber dank unserer Freunde von CIG ATX sind wir auf dem besten Weg, die Dinge in den nächsten Tagen abzuschließen.
Zusammen mit Constellation arbeiten wir auch an Idris. Die individuelle Detaillierung jedes Raumes ist ein langer Prozess, aber wir glauben, dass es sich lohnen wird, wenn man jeden Zentimeter dieses Schiffes erkunden kann. Die Entwicklung auf Idris wird bis August fortgesetzt.
Wie bereits im letzten Update erwähnt, haben wir Anfang dieses Monats zwei Charaktere fertig gestellt. Wir freuen uns auf die zukünftige Charakterarbeit und allein der Name unseres nächsten Charakters hat CGBot begeistert. Wir hoffen, dass Sie mit diesen Charakteren und Schiffen Spaß an der Navigation durch die Galaxie haben werden.
(Redigiert)
Grüße Stern-Bürger! Juli war ein wirklich solider Monat für das FPS-Team hier bei[REDACTED]. Zwischen den epischen Nerf-Gun-Kämpfen, die zufällig im Büro ausgebrochen sind, haben wir Features und Inhalte ausgeklammert, als gäbe es kein Morgen mehr und das FPS-Modul fängt wirklich an, zusammenzukommen.
Die Ingenieure und Designer haben alle Waffen und Gadgets implementiert. Wir haben alles, was Sie normalerweise erwarten würden, wie Pistolen, Gewehre, Granaten, etc..... aber es gibt auch einige andere einzigartige Leckerbissen, die auch dabei sind. Energiebasierte Waffen, Gegenmaßnahmen wie EMPs und einige andere, die ich dir im Moment nicht verderben will! Oh und wir haben jetzt Taschenlampen.... Get hype! Du kannst jetzt im Dunkeln sehen!
Mehr Arbeit wurde investiert, um die Pistole auf EVA vorzubereiten, und es ist sehr nahe dran, fertig zu werden. Das neue Modell wird derzeit aufgerüstet und die VFX-Jungs haben die Effekte optimiert und optimiert.
Es wurde viel an dem Visier-HUD für FPS gearbeitet. Ein großer Teil der Arbeiten wurde mit dem HUD-System integriert, das derzeit für Schiffe eingesetzt wird. Wir haben auch an einem Missionszielsystem gearbeitet, das sich mit dem Visier-HUD verbindet.
Die Animatoren haben sich bemüht, alle neuen Gegenstände und Waffen aufzurüsten und bereit zu machen, zusammen mit Charakteranimationen, die sie begleiten. Auch in Austin gab es im vergangenen Monat viele neue Bewegungsaufnahmen, darunter auch für das FPS-Modul. Wir haben Animationen für Hitreaktionen, Todessequenzen und einige wirklich coole Zero G Sachen, von denen du in Zukunft mehr hören solltest.
Auf der Audio-Seite werden Soundeffekte für alle Waffen und Gegenstände erstellt und poliert. Die meisten von ihnen sind eine schöne Mischung aus Mechanik und einem Sci-Fi-Energiegefühl. Wir wissen, dass gute Sounds für lustige Waffen sorgen, also versuchen wir wirklich, sie dazu zu bringen, knackig und kraftvoll zu klingen.
Das Art Team hat Vermögenswerte für die Umgebung der Raumstation geschaffen. Einige neue Shader und Werkzeuge kamen gerade erst in die Pipe, was es ihnen ermöglicht hat, die Optik noch weiter zu verbessern und einige wirklich schön aussehende Materialien zu erhalten, die vorher nicht möglich waren. Ja, das ist richtig. Das Spiel wird noch besser aussehen als bisher!
Schließlich haben wir bei einigen der Netzwerk- und Matchmaking-Probleme von Arena Commander geholfen. Einer unserer Ingenieure ist eine Art Matchmaking-Superstar. Ich nenne ihn gerne den Millionärs-Matchmaker.... hi[REDACTED], danke für die ganze harte Arbeit!
Das war's dann auch schon für diesen Monat, liebe Sternenbürger. Wir sehen uns in einem Monat! (REDAKTIERT) raus!
P.S. - Ich brauche wirklich eine Nerf-Waffe. Meine derzeitige Politik des passiven Widerstands scheitert an dem immer weiter eskalierenden Wettrüsten.
Benoit Beauséjour, Gründer und Gründer
Keine Zeit, den sonnigen Montrealer Sommer für das Plattformteam zu genießen!
Neue Schiffsseiten & Viewer
Die neuen Schiffsseiten haben die meisten unserer Zyklen in Anspruch genommen, da wir den Datenrahmen und die Ansichten festgelegt haben, die wir benötigen, um geeignete Schiffsspezifikationen vorzulegen, damit die Spieler den Schiffskatalog durchsuchen können. Dazu gehört eine benutzerdefinierte Management-Konsole zur Verwaltung von Spezifikationsdaten für jede Schiffsvariante und jedes Chassis sowie API-Endpunkte zur Steuerung des Holo Viewer und der Tech Overview für alle aktuellen Schiffe.
Es gab eine große Datenverwaltungsaufgabe, als wir die Erfassung von über 300 NEUEN Schiffsscreenshots für alle verfügbaren Schiffe aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln sowie die Erfassung und den Export der schiffstechnischen Daten koordinierten. Einige Beispiele sind in diesem Bericht enthalten.
Dieses große Refactoring ist seit einiger Zeit in Arbeit, hat sich aber in den letzten Wochen wirklich zusammengeführt, als wir den neuen WebGL Holo Viewer in das Datenmodell integriert haben. Der neue Viewer ermöglicht es Ihnen, Hardpoints, Antrieb und POI direkt auf dem Schiff zu durchsuchen und den Inhalt der Schiffsverladung im 3D-Raum zu sehen. Darüber hinaus haben wir einen vollständigen 3D-POI-Editor entwickelt, der es uns ermöglicht, POI-Marker zu bestimmten Bereichen jedes Schiffes hinzuzufügen und/oder die von uns importierten Daten zu korrigieren. Es ist sehr praktisch, um POIs auf Konzept-Schiffen anzuzeigen, die die CryEngine noch nicht erreicht haben. Es bleibt noch viel zu tun, um diesen Prozess vollständig in die Schiffspipeline zu integrieren; aber wir hoffen, dass er bald richtig integriert wird!
Wir wollten auch in der Lage sein, den Zustand jedes Schiffes online korrekt zu melden. Ist dieses Schiff im Hangar? Kann ich es fliegen? Ist dieses Schiff derzeit im Konzept? Dieses neue Framework wird es uns ermöglichen, die Spielmodulseiten so zu modifizieren, dass sie den Zustand jedes Schiffes in Bezug auf jedes Modul berücksichtigen.
Dieser Satz von Tools und Datenmodellen ist unser erstes Stück der Galactapedia, da alle Schiffsdaten vollständig vom Speicher getrennt sind und auch verwendet werden, um Teile dieses Moduls zu steuern, wenn wir näher dran sind, es online zu bringen. Wir erwarten, dass wir in naher Zukunft die gleiche Arbeit für Planeten und Systeme übernehmen werden.
Um die neuen Schiffsseiten richtig darzustellen, haben wir auch das gesamte Lager überarbeitet, um die Vision des Herstellers und der Schiffe richtig wiederzugeben. Hoffentlich wird sich dieser neue Modus zum Stöbern mehr fiktiv anfühlen und die Tiefe des Star Citizen-Universums angemessen widerspiegeln.
Du solltest die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit sehr bald online sehen! Wir sind begeistert!
Unternehmen fallen lassen zwei
Die Konzeptarbeit an den Funktionen für Organizations Drop Two wurde fortgesetzt. Wir planen die Einführung eines Tools speziell für Spieler mit der Rolle "Operations", das es ihnen ermöglicht, Jobs & Divisions innerhalb ihrer Organisationen zu verwalten. Dieses Tool bringt hauptsächlich die Funktion der Struktur in Ihre Gruppe und wird eine sehr gute Möglichkeit sein, sie in Untereinheiten zu organisieren. Diese Funktion in Verbindung mit den Funktionen von "Jobs", die wie ein Tag-System funktionieren, erleichtert das Filtern und Verwalten von Mitgliedern. Wir haben einige sehr coole Visualisierungsideen an dieser Stelle und hoffen, Ihnen bald einige davon zeigen zu können!
Wir haben auch einige Fortschritte bei der Konzeption einiger Rekrutierungswerkzeuge für Unternehmen gemacht, um Führungskräften bei der Suche nach Mitgliedern zu helfen. Wir hoffen, dass wir diese in die Liste aufnehmen können.
Alles in allem ein toller Monat!
Matthew Jack, Gründer und Gründer
Juli war ein wichtiger Monat für Moon Collider, da wir die Größe unseres Teams deutlich erhöht haben, was es uns ermöglichen wird, den KI-Bedarf für Star Citizen in Zukunft besser zu decken und die anderen Teams bei der Arbeit an weiteren KI-schweren Features zu unterstützen. Wir waren sehr zufrieden mit Ihrer Antwort auf das Vanduul Swarm Gameplay, und unsere neuen Teammitglieder werden uns wirklich helfen, weiterhin die erstklassige KI zu liefern, die Sie alle erwarten, wenn Sie Star Citizen spielen.
Wir sind seit einiger Zeit ein Team von dreieinhalb Personen, und jetzt haben wir den Sprung auf sechs geschafft, mit einem Kern von vier Vollzeit-Entwicklern und zwei Unterstützern in Teilzeit. Also, wer sind die neuen Gesichter?
Adam und Diana haben beide die warmen Küsten von Perth, Australien, verlassen und beschlossen, das Klima von Edinburgh zu trotzen, um Teil des Kythera-Teams zu werden. Beide haben zuvor bei Crytek als Programmierer bzw. Projektmanager gearbeitet. Adam wird Vollzeit mit uns arbeiten, um unser Kythera-KI-System nahtlos in die animierten Charaktere von CryEngine einzubinden, während Diana Teilzeitunterstützung bietet, die administrative Aufgaben übernimmt, damit der Rest des Teams mehr Zeit damit verbringen kann, großartige neue Funktionen ins Spiel zu bringen und an euch alle zu verteilen.
Jurie ist eine erfahrene Entwicklerin, die zuvor bei Rockstar Games gearbeitet hat. Er war in den letzten Monaten die zusätzliche "Hälfte" und hat für uns an unserem Debugging-Toolset gearbeitet. Jedes System ist nur so gut wie seine Werkzeuge; das gilt insbesondere für die KI, und mit Juries Hilfe werden wir wirklich das Mögliche vorantreiben (mehr dazu unten!) Er wird weiterhin in Teilzeit aus Frankreich arbeiten und Kytheras Debugging- und Visualisierungsfunktionen verbessern, so dass es für uns und alle Star Citizen-Teams einfacher ist, zu verstehen, was in den virtuellen Köpfen der KI vor sich geht. Dies wird uns helfen, weiterhin zuversichtlich zu sein, dass die KI robust ist, und vor allem, Spaß am Spielen mit und gegen die KI!
Aber genug mit dem Appell. Was haben wir diesen Monat gemacht?
Wir haben unsere Arbeit fortgesetzt, um die Luftkampf-KI auf dem Server laufen zu lassen, und das entwickelt sich gut. Es gibt noch mehr zu tun, um es robuster zu machen, aber wir sind zufrieden mit dem, was wir bisher erreicht haben.
Auf der FPS-Seite haben wir die KI weiter verbessert, wobei wir uns besonders auf ihre Wahrnehmungsfähigkeiten konzentriert haben, wie z.B. die Einbeziehung von Sichtlinieninformationen, um festzustellen, ob sie den Spieler sehen können, und die Sammlung grundlegender Informationen über alle Charaktere, die sich in der Nähe befinden. Ihre Kampffähigkeiten sind im Moment noch sehr grundlegend, aber mit der Grundlage, die wir hinzufügen, können wir anfangen, anspruchsvollere Verhaltensweisen zu entwickeln.
Wir haben in diesem Monat einige wichtige Verbesserungen an unserem Toolset vorgenommen, wobei das Hauptmerkmal die Möglichkeit ist, detaillierte Daten darüber aufzuzeichnen, was die KI während der Ausführung des Spiels tut, und es dann später mit visuellen Debugginginformationen innerhalb der Spielwelt wiederzugeben. Dies ist ein äußerst nützliches Feature für Designer, um zurückgehen und genau untersuchen zu können, was die KI in verschiedenen Situationen während eines Playthrough gemacht hat, so dass sie Möglichkeiten finden können, ihr Verhalten zu verfeinern, um ihnen mehr Spaß beim Spielen zu machen. Es ist auch sehr praktisch, um Fehler aufzuspüren!
Ein großes Merkmal, dem wir uns langsam ernsthaft widmen, ist das persistente Universum und die Gestaltung, wie die KI funktionieren muss, insbesondere auf dem Planeten. Es gibt hier viele große Herausforderungen und wir sind alle sehr ehrgeizig mit dem, was wir erreichen wollen, so dass wir viel Zeit mit der Designarbeit in diesem Bereich verbringen werden, damit wir es richtig machen.
Schließlich nahm sich das gesamte Team Anfang des Monats eine Auszeit von Star Citizen, um an der Game/AI Conference in Wien teilzunehmen. Dies war eine großartige Gelegenheit, mit anderen KI-Entwicklern zu sprechen und mehr über die KI-Technologie zu erfahren, die für andere Spiele entwickelt wird. Wir sind leidenschaftlich daran interessiert, Kythera auf dem neuesten Stand der Spiel-KI zu halten, und diese Konferenz ist eines der wichtigsten jährlichen Treffen für Entwickler von Spiel-KI, daher war es wirklich toll, dass wir alle teilnehmen konnten. Es war auch eine Gelegenheit für unser neu erweitertes Team, alle zur gleichen Zeit am gleichen Ort zu sein, was es uns ermöglichte, dieses ausgezeichnete Mannschaftsfoto im Prater-Vergnügungspark in Wien zu machen. Und ja, ja, ja, wir denken, dass dieser Clown auch ziemlich beängstigend ist.
Greetings Citizens,
July was a big month for Star Citizen! The long battle with rubber-banding tested our resolve at times, but we finally achieved victory! We’re ecstatic with the results of all our work: Arena Commander’s multiplayer is playing like we originally intended.
We’re eager to move on to integrating other portions of the larger game… including those that have been in simultaneous development across our studios and outsource partners! August will see several big events, including Chris’ presentation at Gamescom and presentations at PAX East and Dragon*Con. Expect to see some cool parts of the Star Citizen universe in the coming weeks!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer
Greetings Citizens,
At this point, I think it’s safe to say that you already know a lot of what Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica has been focusing on! Our engineers have been working the rubber banding problem since the release of 12.4, and we’re so happy that the fix is finally out. Eliminating rubber banding (and in the process so many other issues) involved taking several aspects of Arena Commander (including our very complex physics system) apart, examining all the pieces and then hoping they fit back together correctly. But the early word is they do, and 12.5 is the best multiplayer experience yet!
If you’re interested in some very specific details about this process, please check out the “patch update” posts released during each week of 12.5’s development. To make a long story short, though, every single member of the Santa Monica team went above and beyond to get this thing out, whether that meant playtesting in their spare time or working until the wee hours rewriting physics code.
Arena Commander isn’t the only thing expanding this month, though: the office itself is growing. We’re in the process of moving the Community team (and several others) into additional office space next door, which will give us room to grow the team here. One thing that’s allowing us to do is move the ship production pipeline to Santa Monica. Kami traveled to Austin last week to work on that transition, which will allow Chris more visibility on where a particular ship is at any time.
We’ve also been preparing for our Gamescom 2014 demo, which will happen in just over two weeks. Sandi and her team have done a great job of planning the event, where you’ll get a chance to meet some of the team behind Arena Commander. We’re eager to hang out with the backers who are making this all possible and swap some dogfighting war stories. Look for us in Cologne and feel free to say hi if you spot us around the show.
Looking forward, we’re hoping to expand the Arena Commander multiplayer base as soon as possible. Expect news on that shortly. In the meantime, please keep helping us test the game! Your Twitch streams, CS tickets, forum comments and other interactions with the team are what has let us get to this point, and I hope you can feel how your input has allowed us to improve the AC experience. Keep your fighters flying and your feedback coming in!
Eric Peterson, Studio Director
The CIG Austin office has been hard at work on Star Citizen, from getting patch 12.5 out, to preparing for the upcoming Gamescom event. Here is an inside look at what our studio has been up to as we continue onwards toward delivering the BDSSE.
Mocap and Cinematics
Characters
We have been working on our pipeline for characters and rigging and have been investigating incorporating some interesting clothing technology from Redacted Studios in (somewhere on planet earth). We got our head scanning rig in and will soon be ready to expand our characters, we have also been investigating head customization methodologies for players. We’ve been supporting the Redacted Commercial, the Redacted II Commercial, and the bigger badder Redacted III Commercial.
Animations
Have spent the month doing a 4 week female animation set mocap session focusing on basic locomotion and FPS/weapon set moves. We have also been supporting the various commercials with motion capture, solving, and editing. In addition our very own Sandi Gardiner stopped in and put on the suit for some motion capture sessions, what a trooper!
Cinematics
We are refining the budget and schedule for the S42 mocap and performance capture shoots and beginning the pre-production process. Where will we capture? Look for an announcement sometime in the future about that.
Engineering
Release 12.4 support and profiling. Assisted with debugging and improvement of ship movement and matchmaking for release 12.5. Performed CryEngine 3.6.3 integration and submitting it for testing. Physics bug fixes. Basic live server metrics. Implemented and testing automated large universe cluster deployment. Implemented caching patch servers and pre-warming, being deployed with IT. Tool improvements and fixes, including Trackview fixes for commercial work and auto-import of Crytek SDK Perforce server. PU planning, star system layout tool, and PU prototyping. Future improved ship and character movement planning and discussion.. Oh, and released 12.5 – finally.
Design
The CIG Austin design team is hard at work on bringing the persistent universe to life. We’re starting small, getting all of the basic functionality in place and expanding as we go. We’ve put together a more detailed roadmap for the next twelve months of development, and we’re polishing off all of the design and tasking needs for that development. Of course, all of it centers around the economy and how it connects the universe.
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work supporting other areas of the universe: standardizing ship development, pushing ahead with balance for ships and parts, helping to get ships into the hangar, working out the technology and design of our clothing sets, and – as always – helping the test and balancing of the dogfighting module, as well as animation support for some ship setups. Been a busy month, but we love seeing where this is going, and we hope that you will enjoy it.
Ships
The CIG ATX ship team has been VERY busy preparing for Gamescom. Although I can’t disclose the actually ships you’ll see there, I can tell you they are awesome! Having said that we, on the ship team, are looking well past Gamescom. The month of August and September look to be very exciting with several ships in the pipeline. And we hope you enjoy the M50 – as Chris Smith just did an amazing job of getting that ready.
Art
Well, on ships we worked on the m50, mustang, constellation and it’s variants, xian scout, Vanduul ship exploration as well as various components to allow some customization in the near future.
On the characters side of the equation – Redacted commercial characters are being completed, other module characters are in the works and lots of work on the Xian Character as well as Character customizations.
On the persistent universe, or planetside of things, we worked on the Gold horizon space station for Redacted as well as Hangar revamps. In addition, the gold shirt auction has been a big success, thank you all for your continued support.
Freelance
This month CGBot has been focused on the stars – the Constellations, to be precise! They’re preparing the ship and the variants ready to go in hangars. Virtuos has been getting acquainted with our editor and preparing to start working on ships, while also continuing with props for the REDACTED demo, and Rmory is creating some awesome weapon concepts and game assets for the REDACTED as well.
On the contractor front, the focus has been mostly on getting concepts for the REDACTED demo – David Brochard and Rob McKinnon have been working on some cool armor art. In the meantime new contractor Hugues Giboire has been working up a 3D Xi’an character. Our other active contractors have been working on ships – Jim Martin has submitted some new concepts for the Caterpillar, Jan Urschel is working on the Xi’an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church continues to develop the Panther, and George Hull has delivered some awesome new revisions to the Collector concept!”
Production
In addition Citizens, we also had a PU summit in Montreal with our partners at BHVR and are very happy with what is going on up there, not to mention the weather in July is WAY better than in Austin. So, as you can see, we have been working hard on making our dream game, and will continue to march forward on making the BDSSE. The team here appreciates all the support, and patience, as we know that sometimes things go a little bit off kilter on delivery, but love being able to share all of the secrets of game development, even when some things take a bit more time. So thank you all for your continued passion, and love for this game, it keeps us all full of pride and satisfaction knowing that we are all in this together.
Erin Roberts, Studio Director
Hi again, really busy month down at the farm. So much has been achieved throughout this month at Foundry 42, from helping get 12.5 out, to some great work by the team on our next big feature release (13) and Gamescom. Not forgetting S42 which we have made really great progress on.
Loads of focus has been on GamesCom and getting as much polish into our main branch as possible to show the game at its best. (We have been running two sets of the code for the past 6-8 weeks, Release 12 branch which is what we released 12.5 from on Wednesday night, which is predominantly about getting dog fighting stable and balanced, and main where the new features are being implemented which we make new branches from when we get near to release.) This allows us to get on with new feature implementation for the game, while not destabilizing our release builds with new code and data. So basically what you have seen in 12.5 is only the work that has happened in that branch, there is much, much more that has been going on all this time that you will see soon when we hit Gamescom and release version 13.
I look forward to meeting a bunch of you while in Germany in a few weeks and showing some really cool stuff at Gamescom so I can really thank you all for your support and patience, while we endeavour to make this incredible Universe together.
Design
Blimey! Has it been a month already.
Leader Boards, Lobby systems, Key Bindings have all had design focus and are being worked on for release in 13 or soon after. Also we’ve got two new awesome game modes for DFM which we plan on showing at Gamescom and releasing with 13.
S42 has made a bunch of progress this month. We have broken down the campaign further with the writers and the tasks are all out there for the “Vertical Slice”. We have prototypes for landing and take-off being worked on right now. Also, lots of work is going into the FPS side of the game, with AI behaviour, combat, stealth, perception, pick-ups, objective systems, checkpoints and the conversations system, all being designed and implemented for the game. We have a number of missions early white boxed so we can play through from start to end to make sure the pacing is right.
The ship white-boxing on the Panther Class Escort carrier is continuing really well, and the Idris is getting closer to “Hangar” release. (caveat: it won’t fit in the hangar so there will be another cool way to get into it from the hangar).
Again, thanks for the fantastic support. It is a pleasure to be working on such an awesome project with you all.
Programming
This month we’ve been splitting our engineering time up into three parallel teams to make sure we deliver everything we want to show you guys in 12.5, Gamescom and give you all the best experience going forwards with S42.
We’ve been helping out on the 12.5 build. Apart from the rubber banding we’ve been trying to track down and fix a really nasty low repro bug which would cause the player’s head to shake constantly when they respawn after dying. Every time we thought we had a fix the player would start standing up in the cockpit instead. Every time we thought we’d fixed the standing up bug with head shake would return. And so on. We think we’ve now got a good handle and fix on both issues now for the latest patch.
We’re really excited by what we are going to show you at GamesCom. There’s been a lot of work on polishing up the HUD to make it more friendly, the radar to make it less cluttered, cameras, lots of audio improvements, new game modes and loads more.
And finally we’re supporting our designers here getting the Squadron 42 vertical slice up and running, including prototyping a new landing mechanic, and long term goals like creating a tool to make setting up the vehicles easier and less error prone, (which will allow us to get ships and vehicles into DFM much faster) a new vehicle state system, AI and, as always, lots of bug fixing!
Environment Art
The environment team has been hard at work this month on creating something special, we are producing a new location like nothing you’ve seen before in Star Citizen. We have taken the architecture, lighting and colour palette in a different direction, this will complement the existing environments – so we will have Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue), and the new map (Green). All these elements will also find their way into the PU, so it helps flesh out the Universe you will all be living in when the PU comes online.
We are really excited for you guys to see it, all will be revealed at GamesCon and Release 13.
Vehicle Art
The Ship and Vehicle Team here at Foundry 42 , has been hard at work this month continuing work on the Gladius, the Gladiator and the Retaliator, as well as our current cap ship productions like the Javelin and the Panther.
The Gladius is currently been setup for its shading, audio and animations, before it goes into the technical setup stage, where it can be made ready for the Hangar. We’re really close on this one.
The Gladiator is currently in its grey box stage, and the Retaliator is getting closer and closer to its final grey box stage.
The ongoing design work on the Javelin is working nicely alongside the art production for this ship, currently we are working on the Bridge and the Crew mess for this ship, so we can tie these rooms into the storyline for SQ42.
The massive Panther is coming along nicely as well, all the hallways are nearing completion, and we are currently focussing on the Crew Barracks and escape pods to be grey boxed.
Lots of work has also been going on with animation, where new pilot animations for the ship cockpits are going into our main branch for Gamescom, and a bunch of testing on Vanduul movement and also our character and facial systems.
Audio
This month has been all about getting the audio to follow clearer goals and design direction. We’ve further revised a selection of weapon sounds as a test bed for a new approach to weapon sounds. The weapons that we’ve done so far now include percussive/explosive elements and mechanical layers. The new approach to these sounds gives a more believable and satisfying result. We’re also excited to introduce the new ship fly-by sounds as of release 13. If a Vanduul ship tears past you, this moment will now have an exciting and carefully designed fly by sound. Plenty of other improvements have been happening across the board for the sound of Star Citizen so look forward to those over the coming months.
As well as the various improvements we’ve been making, team audio has been hard at work on gamescom related tasks which we are incredibly excited to show everyone!!
Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer
The month of July brings beautiful warm weather to Montreal and lots of planning!
This month Behaviour hosted a Persistent Universe Summit where Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec and other folks from CIG sat down with [Redacted] and the Montreal team to better and more efficiently plan the approach to world building for the PU.
Summer wouldn’t be complete without bugs! Programming has been working on a lot of Release 12.5 bug fixes related to the Visor, Arena Commander UI, as well as with the Asteroid Hangar.
The concept phase for the Origin 890 Jump is complete!
Subscriber flair for July is ready to go, and August and September flair objects are underway.
Level design, art, audio and programming teams have also been hard at work reworking the original three hangars. They are now in the debugging/polish phase and the hangars are looking more and more slick.
A galactic tune-up is also underway! The design team has been injecting Science into the current star systems. They have also been hard at work planning the first internal release of planetside.
The UI team continues to advance with various mobiGlas mock-ups, as well as a redesign of the current pause screen, flair object UI, and the occasional bug squishing. They have also been reading all your posts in the Star Citizen UI/UX thread (even though they can’t answer every post (yet)). Keep the great ideas coming!
Austin Goddard, Producer
July has come and gone but not without progress on all fronts from the CGBot team.
We are continuing to chip away at all the tasks needed to bring you the Constellation fleet. One of our main focuses when it comes to Constellation is getting one of the ships dogfight ready. The task hasn’t been simple but thanks to our friends at CIG ATX, we are well on our way to wrapping things up in the coming days.
Along with Constellation we are also working on Idris. Detailing out each room individually is a long process but we believe it will be well worth the effort when you get to explore every inch of this ship. Development will continue to take place on Idris through August.
As was mentioned in the last update we finished up two characters at the beginning of this month. We look forward to future character work and the name alone of our next character has CGBot excited. It is our hope that with these characters and ships you will enjoy navigating the galaxy.
[Redacted]
Greetings Star Citizens! July was a really solid month for the FPS Team here at [REDACTED]. Between the epic nerf gun fights that have been randomly breaking out in the office, we’ve been knocking out features and content like there’s no tomorrow and the FPS module is really starting to come together.
The engineers and designers have been implementing all the weapons and gadgets. We’ve got all the things you would normally expect like pistols, rifles, grenades, etc… but there are also some other unique goodies going in as well. Energy based weaponry, countermeasures like EMPs and some others that I don’t want to spoil for you right now! Oh and we now have flashlights… Get hype! You can now see in the dark!
More work went in to getting the pistol ready for EVA and it’s very close to being done. The new model is currently being rigged and the VFX guys have been tuning and tweaking the effects.
There was a lot of work done on the Visor HUD for FPS. A large part of the work has been integrating with the HUD system that is currently being used for ships. We’ve also been working on a mission objective system that hooks in to the Visor HUD.
The animators have been chugging along getting all of the new items and weapons rigged up and ready to go, along with character animations to accompany them. Lots of new motion capture has been going on in Austin this past month as well, some of it being for the FPS module. We’ve got animations for hit reactions coming in, death sequences and some really cool Zero G stuff which you should be hearing more about in the future.
On the audio side, sound effects are being created and polished for all of the weapons and items. Most of them are a nice mix of mechanical along with a sci-fi energy feel. We know that good sounds make for fun weapons, so we are really trying to push them to sound crisp and powerful.
The Art Team has been creating assets for the space station environment. Some new shaders and tools just came down the pipe, which has allowed them to push the visuals even further and acheive some really nice looking materials that weren’t possible before. Yes, that’s right. The game is going to look even better than it does currently!
Lastly, we’ve been helping out with some of the networking and matchmaking issues on Arena Commander. One of our engineers is a matchmaking superstar of sorts. I like to call him the Millionaire Matchmaker… hi [REDACTED], thanks for all the hard work!
That about wraps it up for this month fellow Star Citizens. See you in a month! [REDACTED] out!
P.S. – I really need to get a Nerf gun. My current policy of passive resistance is failing in the ever escalating arms race.
Benoit Beauséjour, Founder
No time to enjoy sunny Montreal summer for the platform team!
New ship pages & viewer
The new ship pages have been taking most of our cycles as we have established the data framework and views we need to present proper ship specifications to allow players to browse the ship catalog. This include a custom management console to handle managing specifications data for each ship variant and chassis as well as API endpoints to drive the Holo Viewer and Tech Overview for all current ships.
There was a huge data management task as we coordinated the capture of over 300 NEW ship screenshots for all available ships from different view angles as well as the acquisition and export of the ship technical data. A few sample are included in this report.
This major refactoring has been in the works for some time but has really come together in the last few weeks as we integrated the new WebGL Holo Viewer into the data model. The new viewer allows you to browse hardpoints, propulsion and POI directly on the ship and see the contents of the ship loadout in 3d space. In addition, we built a full 3D POI Editor that allows us to add POI markers to specific areas of each ship and/or correct the data that we imported. It’s very convenient for showing POIs on concept ships that have not reached the CryEngine yet. Work is left to fully integrate this process into the ship pipeline ; but we are hopeful that this will be properly integrated soon!
We also wanted to be able to properly report the state of each ship online. Is this ship in the hangar? Can I fly it? Is this ship currently in concept? This new framework will allow us to modify the game module pages to include the state of each ship in relation with each module.
This set of tools and data models is our first piece of the Galactapedia as all of the ship data is entirely separated from the store and will also be used to drive pieces of that module when we are closer to bring it online. We expect to take on the same work for Planets and Systems in the near future.
To properly present the new ship pages, we have also refactored the entire store to properly reflect the vision of the manufacturer and of the ships. Hopefully this new mode to browse will feel more in-fiction and properly reflect the depth of the Star Citizen universe.
You should see the results of this work online very soon! We’re excited!
Organizations Drop Two
Concept work on the features for Organizations Drop Two have continued. We plan to introduce a tool specifically for players with the “Operations” role to allow them to manage Jobs & Divisions within their Organizations. This tool mainly brings the feature of structure to your group and will be a very good way to organize it into sub units. This feature coupled with the features of “Jobs”, which will act like a tag system, will make filtering and managing members easier. We have some very cool visualization ideas on this front and we hope to be able to show you some of them soon!
We also made some headway on conceptualizing some recruiting tools for Organizations to help leaders in finding members. We hope to include these in the drop.
All in all a great month!
Matthew Jack, Founder
July was an important month for Moon Collider, as we significantly increased the size of our team, which will allow us to better meet the AI needs for Star Citizen in the future and support the other teams as they work on more AI-heavy features. We’ve been really pleased with your response to the Vanduul Swarm gameplay so far, and our new team members will really help us to continue delivering the top notch AI that you are all expecting to see when you play Star Citizen.
We’ve been a team of three-and-a-half for a while and we’ve now made the jump to six, with a core of four full-time developers and two supporting part-time. So who are the new faces?
Adam and Diana have both left the warm shores of Perth, Australia, and decided to brave the Edinburgh climate in order to be part of the Kythera team. Both of them have worked previously at Crytek as a programmer and project manager, respectively. Adam will be working full time with us programming and lending his animation expertise to help make our Kythera AI system blend seamlessly with CryEngine’s animated characters, while Diana will provide support part time taking over administrative duties so the rest of the team can spend more time getting awesome new features into the game and out to all of you to play.
Jurie is a veteran developer, having worked previously at Rockstar Games. He has been the extra “half” in recent months, doing contract work for us on our debugging toolset. Any system is only as good as it’s tools; that’s especially true for AI and with Jurie’s help we’re really pushing what’s possible (more on that below!) He will continue to work part-time from France, improving Kythera’s debugging and visualization features so that it’s easier for us and all of the Star Citizen teams to understand what’s going on in the virtual heads of AI. This will help us continue to be confident that the AI is robust, and more importantly, fun to play with and against!
Enough with the roll call, though. What have we been doing this month?
We’ve been continuing our work to get the dogfighting AI running on the server, and that’s shaping up nicely. There is still more work to do to make it more robust, but we’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far.
On the FPS side we’ve been making more improvements to the AI, with a particular focus on their perception abilities, such as incorporating line-of-sight information to determine whether they can see the player and gathering basic information about all of the characters that are nearby. Their combat abilities are still very basic at the moment, but with the groundwork we’re adding we can start developing more sophisticated behaviours.
We made some significant improvements to our toolset this month, with the main feature being an ability to record detailed data about what AI is doing while running the game, and then replay it later with visual debugging information inside the game world. This is an extremely useful feature for designers to be able to go back and examine exactly what the AI did in different situations during a playthrough, so that they can find opportunities to refine their behavior to make them more fun to play against. It’s also very handy for tracking down bugs!
A big feature that we’re starting to devote serious time to is the persistent universe, and designing how the AI needs to work, particularly planetside. There are a lot of big challenges here and we’re all very ambitious with what we’re hoping to achieve, so we’ll be spending a reasonable amount of time on design work in this area so that we get it right.
Finally, the whole team took some time off from Star Citizen earlier in the month to attend the Game/AI Conference in Vienna. This was a great opportunity to talk with other AI developers and learn about the AI technology being developed for other games. We’re passionate about keeping Kythera at the cutting edge of game AI and this conference is one of the most important annual gatherings for game AI developers, so it was really great that we could all attend. It was also an opportunity for our newly expanded team to all be in the same place at the same time, which allowed us to take this excellent team photo at the Prater amusement park in Vienna. And yes, yes we think that clown is pretty scary too.
July was a big month for Star Citizen! The long battle with rubber-banding tested our resolve at times, but we finally achieved victory! We’re ecstatic with the results of all our work: Arena Commander’s multiplayer is playing like we originally intended.
We’re eager to move on to integrating other portions of the larger game… including those that have been in simultaneous development across our studios and outsource partners! August will see several big events, including Chris’ presentation at Gamescom and presentations at PAX East and Dragon*Con. Expect to see some cool parts of the Star Citizen universe in the coming weeks!
Travis Day, Dogfight Producer
Greetings Citizens,
At this point, I think it’s safe to say that you already know a lot of what Cloud Imperium Games Santa Monica has been focusing on! Our engineers have been working the rubber banding problem since the release of 12.4, and we’re so happy that the fix is finally out. Eliminating rubber banding (and in the process so many other issues) involved taking several aspects of Arena Commander (including our very complex physics system) apart, examining all the pieces and then hoping they fit back together correctly. But the early word is they do, and 12.5 is the best multiplayer experience yet!
If you’re interested in some very specific details about this process, please check out the “patch update” posts released during each week of 12.5’s development. To make a long story short, though, every single member of the Santa Monica team went above and beyond to get this thing out, whether that meant playtesting in their spare time or working until the wee hours rewriting physics code.
Arena Commander isn’t the only thing expanding this month, though: the office itself is growing. We’re in the process of moving the Community team (and several others) into additional office space next door, which will give us room to grow the team here. One thing that’s allowing us to do is move the ship production pipeline to Santa Monica. Kami traveled to Austin last week to work on that transition, which will allow Chris more visibility on where a particular ship is at any time.
We’ve also been preparing for our Gamescom 2014 demo, which will happen in just over two weeks. Sandi and her team have done a great job of planning the event, where you’ll get a chance to meet some of the team behind Arena Commander. We’re eager to hang out with the backers who are making this all possible and swap some dogfighting war stories. Look for us in Cologne and feel free to say hi if you spot us around the show.
Looking forward, we’re hoping to expand the Arena Commander multiplayer base as soon as possible. Expect news on that shortly. In the meantime, please keep helping us test the game! Your Twitch streams, CS tickets, forum comments and other interactions with the team are what has let us get to this point, and I hope you can feel how your input has allowed us to improve the AC experience. Keep your fighters flying and your feedback coming in!
Eric Peterson, Studio Director
The CIG Austin office has been hard at work on Star Citizen, from getting patch 12.5 out, to preparing for the upcoming Gamescom event. Here is an inside look at what our studio has been up to as we continue onwards toward delivering the BDSSE.
Mocap and Cinematics
Characters
We have been working on our pipeline for characters and rigging and have been investigating incorporating some interesting clothing technology from Redacted Studios in (somewhere on planet earth). We got our head scanning rig in and will soon be ready to expand our characters, we have also been investigating head customization methodologies for players. We’ve been supporting the Redacted Commercial, the Redacted II Commercial, and the bigger badder Redacted III Commercial.
Animations
Have spent the month doing a 4 week female animation set mocap session focusing on basic locomotion and FPS/weapon set moves. We have also been supporting the various commercials with motion capture, solving, and editing. In addition our very own Sandi Gardiner stopped in and put on the suit for some motion capture sessions, what a trooper!
Cinematics
We are refining the budget and schedule for the S42 mocap and performance capture shoots and beginning the pre-production process. Where will we capture? Look for an announcement sometime in the future about that.
Engineering
Release 12.4 support and profiling. Assisted with debugging and improvement of ship movement and matchmaking for release 12.5. Performed CryEngine 3.6.3 integration and submitting it for testing. Physics bug fixes. Basic live server metrics. Implemented and testing automated large universe cluster deployment. Implemented caching patch servers and pre-warming, being deployed with IT. Tool improvements and fixes, including Trackview fixes for commercial work and auto-import of Crytek SDK Perforce server. PU planning, star system layout tool, and PU prototyping. Future improved ship and character movement planning and discussion.. Oh, and released 12.5 – finally.
Design
The CIG Austin design team is hard at work on bringing the persistent universe to life. We’re starting small, getting all of the basic functionality in place and expanding as we go. We’ve put together a more detailed roadmap for the next twelve months of development, and we’re polishing off all of the design and tasking needs for that development. Of course, all of it centers around the economy and how it connects the universe.
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work supporting other areas of the universe: standardizing ship development, pushing ahead with balance for ships and parts, helping to get ships into the hangar, working out the technology and design of our clothing sets, and – as always – helping the test and balancing of the dogfighting module, as well as animation support for some ship setups. Been a busy month, but we love seeing where this is going, and we hope that you will enjoy it.
Ships
The CIG ATX ship team has been VERY busy preparing for Gamescom. Although I can’t disclose the actually ships you’ll see there, I can tell you they are awesome! Having said that we, on the ship team, are looking well past Gamescom. The month of August and September look to be very exciting with several ships in the pipeline. And we hope you enjoy the M50 – as Chris Smith just did an amazing job of getting that ready.
Art
Well, on ships we worked on the m50, mustang, constellation and it’s variants, xian scout, Vanduul ship exploration as well as various components to allow some customization in the near future.
On the characters side of the equation – Redacted commercial characters are being completed, other module characters are in the works and lots of work on the Xian Character as well as Character customizations.
On the persistent universe, or planetside of things, we worked on the Gold horizon space station for Redacted as well as Hangar revamps. In addition, the gold shirt auction has been a big success, thank you all for your continued support.
Freelance
This month CGBot has been focused on the stars – the Constellations, to be precise! They’re preparing the ship and the variants ready to go in hangars. Virtuos has been getting acquainted with our editor and preparing to start working on ships, while also continuing with props for the REDACTED demo, and Rmory is creating some awesome weapon concepts and game assets for the REDACTED as well.
On the contractor front, the focus has been mostly on getting concepts for the REDACTED demo – David Brochard and Rob McKinnon have been working on some cool armor art. In the meantime new contractor Hugues Giboire has been working up a 3D Xi’an character. Our other active contractors have been working on ships – Jim Martin has submitted some new concepts for the Caterpillar, Jan Urschel is working on the Xi’an Transport Derelict, Ryan Church continues to develop the Panther, and George Hull has delivered some awesome new revisions to the Collector concept!”
Production
In addition Citizens, we also had a PU summit in Montreal with our partners at BHVR and are very happy with what is going on up there, not to mention the weather in July is WAY better than in Austin. So, as you can see, we have been working hard on making our dream game, and will continue to march forward on making the BDSSE. The team here appreciates all the support, and patience, as we know that sometimes things go a little bit off kilter on delivery, but love being able to share all of the secrets of game development, even when some things take a bit more time. So thank you all for your continued passion, and love for this game, it keeps us all full of pride and satisfaction knowing that we are all in this together.
Erin Roberts, Studio Director
Hi again, really busy month down at the farm. So much has been achieved throughout this month at Foundry 42, from helping get 12.5 out, to some great work by the team on our next big feature release (13) and Gamescom. Not forgetting S42 which we have made really great progress on.
Loads of focus has been on GamesCom and getting as much polish into our main branch as possible to show the game at its best. (We have been running two sets of the code for the past 6-8 weeks, Release 12 branch which is what we released 12.5 from on Wednesday night, which is predominantly about getting dog fighting stable and balanced, and main where the new features are being implemented which we make new branches from when we get near to release.) This allows us to get on with new feature implementation for the game, while not destabilizing our release builds with new code and data. So basically what you have seen in 12.5 is only the work that has happened in that branch, there is much, much more that has been going on all this time that you will see soon when we hit Gamescom and release version 13.
I look forward to meeting a bunch of you while in Germany in a few weeks and showing some really cool stuff at Gamescom so I can really thank you all for your support and patience, while we endeavour to make this incredible Universe together.
Design
Blimey! Has it been a month already.
Leader Boards, Lobby systems, Key Bindings have all had design focus and are being worked on for release in 13 or soon after. Also we’ve got two new awesome game modes for DFM which we plan on showing at Gamescom and releasing with 13.
S42 has made a bunch of progress this month. We have broken down the campaign further with the writers and the tasks are all out there for the “Vertical Slice”. We have prototypes for landing and take-off being worked on right now. Also, lots of work is going into the FPS side of the game, with AI behaviour, combat, stealth, perception, pick-ups, objective systems, checkpoints and the conversations system, all being designed and implemented for the game. We have a number of missions early white boxed so we can play through from start to end to make sure the pacing is right.
The ship white-boxing on the Panther Class Escort carrier is continuing really well, and the Idris is getting closer to “Hangar” release. (caveat: it won’t fit in the hangar so there will be another cool way to get into it from the hangar).
Again, thanks for the fantastic support. It is a pleasure to be working on such an awesome project with you all.
Programming
This month we’ve been splitting our engineering time up into three parallel teams to make sure we deliver everything we want to show you guys in 12.5, Gamescom and give you all the best experience going forwards with S42.
We’ve been helping out on the 12.5 build. Apart from the rubber banding we’ve been trying to track down and fix a really nasty low repro bug which would cause the player’s head to shake constantly when they respawn after dying. Every time we thought we had a fix the player would start standing up in the cockpit instead. Every time we thought we’d fixed the standing up bug with head shake would return. And so on. We think we’ve now got a good handle and fix on both issues now for the latest patch.
We’re really excited by what we are going to show you at GamesCom. There’s been a lot of work on polishing up the HUD to make it more friendly, the radar to make it less cluttered, cameras, lots of audio improvements, new game modes and loads more.
And finally we’re supporting our designers here getting the Squadron 42 vertical slice up and running, including prototyping a new landing mechanic, and long term goals like creating a tool to make setting up the vehicles easier and less error prone, (which will allow us to get ships and vehicles into DFM much faster) a new vehicle state system, AI and, as always, lots of bug fixing!
Environment Art
The environment team has been hard at work this month on creating something special, we are producing a new location like nothing you’ve seen before in Star Citizen. We have taken the architecture, lighting and colour palette in a different direction, this will complement the existing environments – so we will have Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue), and the new map (Green). All these elements will also find their way into the PU, so it helps flesh out the Universe you will all be living in when the PU comes online.
We are really excited for you guys to see it, all will be revealed at GamesCon and Release 13.
Vehicle Art
The Ship and Vehicle Team here at Foundry 42 , has been hard at work this month continuing work on the Gladius, the Gladiator and the Retaliator, as well as our current cap ship productions like the Javelin and the Panther.
The Gladius is currently been setup for its shading, audio and animations, before it goes into the technical setup stage, where it can be made ready for the Hangar. We’re really close on this one.
The Gladiator is currently in its grey box stage, and the Retaliator is getting closer and closer to its final grey box stage.
The ongoing design work on the Javelin is working nicely alongside the art production for this ship, currently we are working on the Bridge and the Crew mess for this ship, so we can tie these rooms into the storyline for SQ42.
The massive Panther is coming along nicely as well, all the hallways are nearing completion, and we are currently focussing on the Crew Barracks and escape pods to be grey boxed.
Lots of work has also been going on with animation, where new pilot animations for the ship cockpits are going into our main branch for Gamescom, and a bunch of testing on Vanduul movement and also our character and facial systems.
Audio
This month has been all about getting the audio to follow clearer goals and design direction. We’ve further revised a selection of weapon sounds as a test bed for a new approach to weapon sounds. The weapons that we’ve done so far now include percussive/explosive elements and mechanical layers. The new approach to these sounds gives a more believable and satisfying result. We’re also excited to introduce the new ship fly-by sounds as of release 13. If a Vanduul ship tears past you, this moment will now have an exciting and carefully designed fly by sound. Plenty of other improvements have been happening across the board for the sound of Star Citizen so look forward to those over the coming months.
As well as the various improvements we’ve been making, team audio has been hard at work on gamescom related tasks which we are incredibly excited to show everyone!!
Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer
The month of July brings beautiful warm weather to Montreal and lots of planning!
This month Behaviour hosted a Persistent Universe Summit where Chris Roberts, Tony Zurovec and other folks from CIG sat down with [Redacted] and the Montreal team to better and more efficiently plan the approach to world building for the PU.
Summer wouldn’t be complete without bugs! Programming has been working on a lot of Release 12.5 bug fixes related to the Visor, Arena Commander UI, as well as with the Asteroid Hangar.
The concept phase for the Origin 890 Jump is complete!
Subscriber flair for July is ready to go, and August and September flair objects are underway.
Level design, art, audio and programming teams have also been hard at work reworking the original three hangars. They are now in the debugging/polish phase and the hangars are looking more and more slick.
A galactic tune-up is also underway! The design team has been injecting Science into the current star systems. They have also been hard at work planning the first internal release of planetside.
The UI team continues to advance with various mobiGlas mock-ups, as well as a redesign of the current pause screen, flair object UI, and the occasional bug squishing. They have also been reading all your posts in the Star Citizen UI/UX thread (even though they can’t answer every post (yet)). Keep the great ideas coming!
Austin Goddard, Producer
July has come and gone but not without progress on all fronts from the CGBot team.
We are continuing to chip away at all the tasks needed to bring you the Constellation fleet. One of our main focuses when it comes to Constellation is getting one of the ships dogfight ready. The task hasn’t been simple but thanks to our friends at CIG ATX, we are well on our way to wrapping things up in the coming days.
Along with Constellation we are also working on Idris. Detailing out each room individually is a long process but we believe it will be well worth the effort when you get to explore every inch of this ship. Development will continue to take place on Idris through August.
As was mentioned in the last update we finished up two characters at the beginning of this month. We look forward to future character work and the name alone of our next character has CGBot excited. It is our hope that with these characters and ships you will enjoy navigating the galaxy.
[Redacted]
Greetings Star Citizens! July was a really solid month for the FPS Team here at [REDACTED]. Between the epic nerf gun fights that have been randomly breaking out in the office, we’ve been knocking out features and content like there’s no tomorrow and the FPS module is really starting to come together.
The engineers and designers have been implementing all the weapons and gadgets. We’ve got all the things you would normally expect like pistols, rifles, grenades, etc… but there are also some other unique goodies going in as well. Energy based weaponry, countermeasures like EMPs and some others that I don’t want to spoil for you right now! Oh and we now have flashlights… Get hype! You can now see in the dark!
More work went in to getting the pistol ready for EVA and it’s very close to being done. The new model is currently being rigged and the VFX guys have been tuning and tweaking the effects.
There was a lot of work done on the Visor HUD for FPS. A large part of the work has been integrating with the HUD system that is currently being used for ships. We’ve also been working on a mission objective system that hooks in to the Visor HUD.
The animators have been chugging along getting all of the new items and weapons rigged up and ready to go, along with character animations to accompany them. Lots of new motion capture has been going on in Austin this past month as well, some of it being for the FPS module. We’ve got animations for hit reactions coming in, death sequences and some really cool Zero G stuff which you should be hearing more about in the future.
On the audio side, sound effects are being created and polished for all of the weapons and items. Most of them are a nice mix of mechanical along with a sci-fi energy feel. We know that good sounds make for fun weapons, so we are really trying to push them to sound crisp and powerful.
The Art Team has been creating assets for the space station environment. Some new shaders and tools just came down the pipe, which has allowed them to push the visuals even further and acheive some really nice looking materials that weren’t possible before. Yes, that’s right. The game is going to look even better than it does currently!
Lastly, we’ve been helping out with some of the networking and matchmaking issues on Arena Commander. One of our engineers is a matchmaking superstar of sorts. I like to call him the Millionaire Matchmaker… hi [REDACTED], thanks for all the hard work!
That about wraps it up for this month fellow Star Citizens. See you in a month! [REDACTED] out!
P.S. – I really need to get a Nerf gun. My current policy of passive resistance is failing in the ever escalating arms race.
Benoit Beauséjour, Founder
No time to enjoy sunny Montreal summer for the platform team!
New ship pages & viewer
The new ship pages have been taking most of our cycles as we have established the data framework and views we need to present proper ship specifications to allow players to browse the ship catalog. This include a custom management console to handle managing specifications data for each ship variant and chassis as well as API endpoints to drive the Holo Viewer and Tech Overview for all current ships.
There was a huge data management task as we coordinated the capture of over 300 NEW ship screenshots for all available ships from different view angles as well as the acquisition and export of the ship technical data. A few sample are included in this report.
This major refactoring has been in the works for some time but has really come together in the last few weeks as we integrated the new WebGL Holo Viewer into the data model. The new viewer allows you to browse hardpoints, propulsion and POI directly on the ship and see the contents of the ship loadout in 3d space. In addition, we built a full 3D POI Editor that allows us to add POI markers to specific areas of each ship and/or correct the data that we imported. It’s very convenient for showing POIs on concept ships that have not reached the CryEngine yet. Work is left to fully integrate this process into the ship pipeline ; but we are hopeful that this will be properly integrated soon!
We also wanted to be able to properly report the state of each ship online. Is this ship in the hangar? Can I fly it? Is this ship currently in concept? This new framework will allow us to modify the game module pages to include the state of each ship in relation with each module.
This set of tools and data models is our first piece of the Galactapedia as all of the ship data is entirely separated from the store and will also be used to drive pieces of that module when we are closer to bring it online. We expect to take on the same work for Planets and Systems in the near future.
To properly present the new ship pages, we have also refactored the entire store to properly reflect the vision of the manufacturer and of the ships. Hopefully this new mode to browse will feel more in-fiction and properly reflect the depth of the Star Citizen universe.
You should see the results of this work online very soon! We’re excited!
Organizations Drop Two
Concept work on the features for Organizations Drop Two have continued. We plan to introduce a tool specifically for players with the “Operations” role to allow them to manage Jobs & Divisions within their Organizations. This tool mainly brings the feature of structure to your group and will be a very good way to organize it into sub units. This feature coupled with the features of “Jobs”, which will act like a tag system, will make filtering and managing members easier. We have some very cool visualization ideas on this front and we hope to be able to show you some of them soon!
We also made some headway on conceptualizing some recruiting tools for Organizations to help leaders in finding members. We hope to include these in the drop.
All in all a great month!
Matthew Jack, Founder
July was an important month for Moon Collider, as we significantly increased the size of our team, which will allow us to better meet the AI needs for Star Citizen in the future and support the other teams as they work on more AI-heavy features. We’ve been really pleased with your response to the Vanduul Swarm gameplay so far, and our new team members will really help us to continue delivering the top notch AI that you are all expecting to see when you play Star Citizen.
We’ve been a team of three-and-a-half for a while and we’ve now made the jump to six, with a core of four full-time developers and two supporting part-time. So who are the new faces?
Adam and Diana have both left the warm shores of Perth, Australia, and decided to brave the Edinburgh climate in order to be part of the Kythera team. Both of them have worked previously at Crytek as a programmer and project manager, respectively. Adam will be working full time with us programming and lending his animation expertise to help make our Kythera AI system blend seamlessly with CryEngine’s animated characters, while Diana will provide support part time taking over administrative duties so the rest of the team can spend more time getting awesome new features into the game and out to all of you to play.
Jurie is a veteran developer, having worked previously at Rockstar Games. He has been the extra “half” in recent months, doing contract work for us on our debugging toolset. Any system is only as good as it’s tools; that’s especially true for AI and with Jurie’s help we’re really pushing what’s possible (more on that below!) He will continue to work part-time from France, improving Kythera’s debugging and visualization features so that it’s easier for us and all of the Star Citizen teams to understand what’s going on in the virtual heads of AI. This will help us continue to be confident that the AI is robust, and more importantly, fun to play with and against!
Enough with the roll call, though. What have we been doing this month?
We’ve been continuing our work to get the dogfighting AI running on the server, and that’s shaping up nicely. There is still more work to do to make it more robust, but we’re happy with what we’ve achieved so far.
On the FPS side we’ve been making more improvements to the AI, with a particular focus on their perception abilities, such as incorporating line-of-sight information to determine whether they can see the player and gathering basic information about all of the characters that are nearby. Their combat abilities are still very basic at the moment, but with the groundwork we’re adding we can start developing more sophisticated behaviours.
We made some significant improvements to our toolset this month, with the main feature being an ability to record detailed data about what AI is doing while running the game, and then replay it later with visual debugging information inside the game world. This is an extremely useful feature for designers to be able to go back and examine exactly what the AI did in different situations during a playthrough, so that they can find opportunities to refine their behavior to make them more fun to play against. It’s also very handy for tracking down bugs!
A big feature that we’re starting to devote serious time to is the persistent universe, and designing how the AI needs to work, particularly planetside. There are a lot of big challenges here and we’re all very ambitious with what we’re hoping to achieve, so we’ll be spending a reasonable amount of time on design work in this area so that we get it right.
Finally, the whole team took some time off from Star Citizen earlier in the month to attend the Game/AI Conference in Vienna. This was a great opportunity to talk with other AI developers and learn about the AI technology being developed for other games. We’re passionate about keeping Kythera at the cutting edge of game AI and this conference is one of the most important annual gatherings for game AI developers, so it was really great that we could all attend. It was also an opportunity for our newly expanded team to all be in the same place at the same time, which allowed us to take this excellent team photo at the Prater amusement park in Vienna. And yes, yes we think that clown is pretty scary too.
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- 11 years ago (2014-08-04T00:00:00+00:00)