Squadron 42 Monthly Report: January 2021
Undefined Undefined Monthly ReportsContent
English
This is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We’re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.
Attention Recruits,
What you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Thanks to the work of dedicated field agents and operatives, we’ve uncovered information on the Volt Parallax electron rifle and UltiFlex Novia crossbow, the Xi’an language, and work continues on all ground-based FPS environments.
The information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.
UEE Naval High Command AI (General)
January’s general AI work included improving debug draw for the special action component that allows for a better understanding of which actions are available at any given time. Time was also dedicated to the support of Alpha 3.12 and 3.12.1. Most notably, the new year saw a reorganization of the AI teams into a more efficient structure to encourage knowledge sharing and a more holistic approach to prioritizing tasks and goals.
The department is now split by content, features, and tech: AI Content create behaviors, usables, and other related content
AI Features implement project features. For example, new combat behaviors and ship maneuvers
AI Tech handles all core functionalities that require a more structural design
AI (Content)
The Content Team spent January working on early versions of the engineer, hygiene, hawker, and tourist behaviors. The first pass on the engineer handles maintenance operations for wall panels inside ships and hangars, including inspecting internal fuses and replacing them if damaged. The initial implementation of the hygiene behavior gives NPCs the ability to use toilets, sinks, and showers, while the Hawker is a generic activity that handles various street vendors and speakers. For example, NPCs manning hotdog or taco stands. The first pass on the tourist behavior deals with characters going to and traveling around areas to look at points of interest.
The team are also looking to introduce new behaviors into the ‘leisure’ and ‘eat and drink’ activities, such as vending and arcade machine use.
AI (Features)
AI Features started the year by introducing the first traits affecting AI pilot tactic selection, which allows them to craft more realistic and personal encounters. For example, some pilots will choose safer approaches during combat while others will show-off and use specialist maneuvers. Support for different operator modes began too, which will enable NPCs to correctly use the same new functionalities exposed to players. This includes setting QT mode when they want to quantum jump and returning to the default mode before piloting or fighting.
On the enemy-combat side, dodge actions now utilize blend space. This allows NPCs to align correctly when dodging for a more fluid and immersive combat experience. More controls were introduced to define attack-action limits and to allow the interruption of combo attacks. AI Features also added the ’WeaponConfidence’ stat that’s used to control the firing pace for characters based on their weapon proficiency.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech implemented new functionality to validate Subsumption code events. This allows them to verify bad setups, missing files, and ensure that variables carried by events are configured correctly. They also began supporting feature tests for Subsumption behavior and logic. To achieve this, they exposed a way to request that NPCs execute a custom logic assignment. This gives them a flexible way to request the execution of specific logic to NPCs that stacks on top of the systemic behaviors at the appropriate time. AI Tech also optimized the Subsumption ‘DebugTaskTree’ and Subsumption update. The DebugTaskTree optimization reduces runtime allocation, bringing the performance of the internal build closer to the release build. The Subsumption update reduces locks in the memory allocator. Local tests have shown that this saves around 5ms when updating 500 active NPCs at a given time.
Animation
The Animation Team worked on player features throughout January. This included blocking out of hurt locomotion, final animations for mounted guns, Volt Parallax animations, short-distance staggers, mag-stripping state machine blockouts, zero-g traversal, and player fall-to-move-forward assets. On the AI side, the team implemented final motion capture for a number of sets. Alongside this they progressed with state machine graphs for mess hall sitting and eating, character wildlines, formal rail-leaning, vending machine blocking, wall panel maintenance, the weapon vendor, and guard animation sets to combine them with patrolling.
For Combat AI, focus was on final motion capture implementation and blockouts for the Vanduul pinning the player character down.
Art (Characters)
Last month, Character Art worked on Chapter 4a. Their main focus was on Rebecca Trejo, with the team polishing her head, creating hair, and developing a new outfit. Old Man received polish as well, which predominately involved adding the new eye assembly. Revisions to the Xi’an were also made and passed onto Tech Animation for rigging. A few minor characters also received new assets and polish passes.
Art (Weapons)
The Weapon Art Team continued to work on the Volt Parallax electron rifle, taking the art to ‘greybox complete.’ The majority of the mesh was modeled and the team are currently rigging and animating the weapon before heading further into the final art phase. The UltiFlex Novia crossbow progressed through final art and was handed over to Tech Art to finalize the rig due to the unique challenges of the weapon. Early in the month, an investigation was made into the mag stripping feature to assess what will be needed once feature work starts. The team took this opportunity to make a pass on the grip-nodes setup too. Finally for FPS weapons, the team added a new healing Multi-Tool attachment. They also updated the battery and resource canister to be detachable to futureproof the weapon for additional functionality. Work also began on a new standalone Greycat Industrial cutter tool. On the ship weapons side, work continued on the FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB, which moved to final art. At the end of the month, development began on an all-new weapon too.
Cinematics
Following on from a successful chapter milestone in December, the Cinematics Team kicked off the first of 2021, polishing further chapters to production quality. When the team created the pipeline for this and further milestones, they divided the production phases into separate passes: Pre-vis: Performance capture and other elements like cameras and FX are added in a very crude form. No editing is done other than basic mo-cap edits from the video editor.
Kick-off: A basic pass where all scene members are loosely aligned, though heavy misalignment is corrected. The state machine is also looked at, so a basic break-up of animation fragments is undertaken.
Implementation: Full alignment is done, all animation fragments are created (mostly to correct length) and basic pose-matching is completed. LookIK is enabled.
Production: All animation elements are polished to a high standard, all pose matching is complete, and a LookIK polish pass is done based on what the actor was going for and where they were looking.
Finalization: The final pass before shipping, includes ensuring fingers are animated correctly and a minor detail polish.
The new milestone contains both scenes in space and scenes inside space stations, with both of them differing in needs and requirements. For example, a scene in space typically begins as a timeline sequence of comms calls between NPCs (some were planned to just be comms calls but were upgraded to full cinematic cutaways over time). In these scenes, the player will be able to experience the action in first-person using the ‘break-free’ feature should they want to.
Once the calls are complete, they team lay down the action elements. This allows them to space out the comms as needed and begin crucial nav-spline work. Control points, ship speed, spline tangents, roll, pitch, and yaw all need to be dialed in carefully.
For example, the splines could start with the player approaching several mercs to scan them. While laying this out, the team pay significant attention to the direction, color, and intensity of the sun (or where it will be in the final mission layout), as the wrong angle could mean the whole scene is ‘flat-lit’ and less interesting.
Another consideration is how costumes, ship loadouts, and cockpits could change, as some aren’t finished or feature meshwork being worked on later in the milestone. A balance needs to be struck in terms of what the designers want to do and what they can do on a first pass, as the spline skeleton needs to be dialed in first. Realistic pathing is vital here, particularly as the scene will be viewable from either first or third person and from a variety of angles.
The current milestone features a scene around a table at a noodle bar, which has challenges very different from animating kilometer-long nav-splines. For example, a character eating noodles with chopsticks means the team have to animate fingers, sticks, a box, and noodles (and possibly film themselves eating on their lunch break for reference). The scene’s state machine must be considered too, with animation idles and fragments in mind. They must also cater for players arriving at varying times due to potential side activities on the way to the scene.
Features (Gameplay)
The SQ42 Feature Team implemented new TrackView weapon functionality to allow the cinematic designers to control characters firing missiles. Technical investigation was completed too, which involved looking at performance and how TrackView could be updated across multiple cores. Currently, it’s single-threaded and automatically pre-caches animations to stop glitches when it’s waiting for an animation to load. SQ42 Features worked with the designers to fix problems with moving the missions to work with object container streaming and went through the requirements of mission-fail conditions. They also continued to help develop the firing range and get it fully working in-game.
Gameplay Story
The Gameplay Story Team completed a mo-cap session before the end of 2020, so they kicked off the year by moving the captures through the pipeline. They also finished a handful of polish tasks remaining for the Morrow Tour. Alongside this, they began updating and maintaining their scenes from chapter 4a, which is a wider development focus of Q1 2021. However, progress was also made on other game sections, including the first chapter. This involved preliminary work on the Correl walk-and-talk and adding placeholder audio to additional vignettes.
Graphics
The Graphics Team started the year finalizing several outstanding bugs and features that didn’t quite make the Q4 deadline. Once complete, focus moved to the Gen12 renderer, which received various improvements to features like depth-of-field. A major rewrite of the tessellation shaders was done to streamline the code and fix a number of bugs. The shadow pass conversion was also completed, with the team now looking to see if they can enable this codepath by default.
Level Design
The Social Design Team benefitted from their focus towards the end of 2020, using the tech and tools they upgraded to make great progress on scenes and narrative sections. The Level Design Team are currently working through all ground-based FPS environments, adding additional setup for the various player paths. The Space/Dogfight Team worked alongside AI to bring an enemy faction’s combat behaviors to the ‘gold standard.’
Narrative
The Narrative Team continued to work closely with the Design Team to review progress on various levels. This included calling out potential moments that might require additional dialogue or scenes to either explain gameplay intent or to make areas feel appropriately populated. They then worked with Audio to create placeholder assets utilizing text-to-speech and temporary recordings so they can be reviewed in situ. They also drafted initial ideas for the target range aboard the Idris, which covered everything from general training to game modes. Elsewhere, they supported other departments with environment documents, mission text, and script revisions.
QA
Cinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes worked correctly and are of the expected quality. They also supported the development teams with issues and tested various changes and updates across the project.
Tech Animation
The Technical Animation Team kicked off the year with Xi’an character body and facial rigs and are currently exploring the alien species’ language, body movement, and joint placements. Skinning tests are also underway to ensure the best foundation possible for the animation rigs. Time was also devoted to Vanduul combat behaviors, animation implementation, and head rigging for upcoming cinematics. This tied into rigging work currently underway for creatures found in the PU.
UI
The UI Team worked alongside Vehicles to implement the new Aegis UI HUD style in the Gladius. In parallel, the artists created an updated UI for RSI that will feature in several campaign ships. The UI programmers began the groundwork for an improved Starmap, interior map, and radar. This is a significant project and will take several months to complete but will greatly help with navigation around the game world.
VFX
VFX worked closely with Art and Design to flesh out the interior ‘cells’ of the Coil, with VFX Tech Art taking an active role in moving the location forwards. Progress was also made on chapter 4’s VFX requirements. WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
Attention Recruits,
What you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Thanks to the work of dedicated field agents and operatives, we’ve uncovered information on the Volt Parallax electron rifle and UltiFlex Novia crossbow, the Xi’an language, and work continues on all ground-based FPS environments.
The information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.
UEE Naval High Command AI (General)
January’s general AI work included improving debug draw for the special action component that allows for a better understanding of which actions are available at any given time. Time was also dedicated to the support of Alpha 3.12 and 3.12.1. Most notably, the new year saw a reorganization of the AI teams into a more efficient structure to encourage knowledge sharing and a more holistic approach to prioritizing tasks and goals.
The department is now split by content, features, and tech: AI Content create behaviors, usables, and other related content
AI Features implement project features. For example, new combat behaviors and ship maneuvers
AI Tech handles all core functionalities that require a more structural design
AI (Content)
The Content Team spent January working on early versions of the engineer, hygiene, hawker, and tourist behaviors. The first pass on the engineer handles maintenance operations for wall panels inside ships and hangars, including inspecting internal fuses and replacing them if damaged. The initial implementation of the hygiene behavior gives NPCs the ability to use toilets, sinks, and showers, while the Hawker is a generic activity that handles various street vendors and speakers. For example, NPCs manning hotdog or taco stands. The first pass on the tourist behavior deals with characters going to and traveling around areas to look at points of interest.
The team are also looking to introduce new behaviors into the ‘leisure’ and ‘eat and drink’ activities, such as vending and arcade machine use.
AI (Features)
AI Features started the year by introducing the first traits affecting AI pilot tactic selection, which allows them to craft more realistic and personal encounters. For example, some pilots will choose safer approaches during combat while others will show-off and use specialist maneuvers. Support for different operator modes began too, which will enable NPCs to correctly use the same new functionalities exposed to players. This includes setting QT mode when they want to quantum jump and returning to the default mode before piloting or fighting.
On the enemy-combat side, dodge actions now utilize blend space. This allows NPCs to align correctly when dodging for a more fluid and immersive combat experience. More controls were introduced to define attack-action limits and to allow the interruption of combo attacks. AI Features also added the ’WeaponConfidence’ stat that’s used to control the firing pace for characters based on their weapon proficiency.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech implemented new functionality to validate Subsumption code events. This allows them to verify bad setups, missing files, and ensure that variables carried by events are configured correctly. They also began supporting feature tests for Subsumption behavior and logic. To achieve this, they exposed a way to request that NPCs execute a custom logic assignment. This gives them a flexible way to request the execution of specific logic to NPCs that stacks on top of the systemic behaviors at the appropriate time. AI Tech also optimized the Subsumption ‘DebugTaskTree’ and Subsumption update. The DebugTaskTree optimization reduces runtime allocation, bringing the performance of the internal build closer to the release build. The Subsumption update reduces locks in the memory allocator. Local tests have shown that this saves around 5ms when updating 500 active NPCs at a given time.
Animation
The Animation Team worked on player features throughout January. This included blocking out of hurt locomotion, final animations for mounted guns, Volt Parallax animations, short-distance staggers, mag-stripping state machine blockouts, zero-g traversal, and player fall-to-move-forward assets. On the AI side, the team implemented final motion capture for a number of sets. Alongside this they progressed with state machine graphs for mess hall sitting and eating, character wildlines, formal rail-leaning, vending machine blocking, wall panel maintenance, the weapon vendor, and guard animation sets to combine them with patrolling.
For Combat AI, focus was on final motion capture implementation and blockouts for the Vanduul pinning the player character down.
Art (Characters)
Last month, Character Art worked on Chapter 4a. Their main focus was on Rebecca Trejo, with the team polishing her head, creating hair, and developing a new outfit. Old Man received polish as well, which predominately involved adding the new eye assembly. Revisions to the Xi’an were also made and passed onto Tech Animation for rigging. A few minor characters also received new assets and polish passes.
Art (Weapons)
The Weapon Art Team continued to work on the Volt Parallax electron rifle, taking the art to ‘greybox complete.’ The majority of the mesh was modeled and the team are currently rigging and animating the weapon before heading further into the final art phase. The UltiFlex Novia crossbow progressed through final art and was handed over to Tech Art to finalize the rig due to the unique challenges of the weapon. Early in the month, an investigation was made into the mag stripping feature to assess what will be needed once feature work starts. The team took this opportunity to make a pass on the grip-nodes setup too. Finally for FPS weapons, the team added a new healing Multi-Tool attachment. They also updated the battery and resource canister to be detachable to futureproof the weapon for additional functionality. Work also began on a new standalone Greycat Industrial cutter tool. On the ship weapons side, work continued on the FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB, which moved to final art. At the end of the month, development began on an all-new weapon too.
Cinematics
Following on from a successful chapter milestone in December, the Cinematics Team kicked off the first of 2021, polishing further chapters to production quality. When the team created the pipeline for this and further milestones, they divided the production phases into separate passes: Pre-vis: Performance capture and other elements like cameras and FX are added in a very crude form. No editing is done other than basic mo-cap edits from the video editor.
Kick-off: A basic pass where all scene members are loosely aligned, though heavy misalignment is corrected. The state machine is also looked at, so a basic break-up of animation fragments is undertaken.
Implementation: Full alignment is done, all animation fragments are created (mostly to correct length) and basic pose-matching is completed. LookIK is enabled.
Production: All animation elements are polished to a high standard, all pose matching is complete, and a LookIK polish pass is done based on what the actor was going for and where they were looking.
Finalization: The final pass before shipping, includes ensuring fingers are animated correctly and a minor detail polish.
The new milestone contains both scenes in space and scenes inside space stations, with both of them differing in needs and requirements. For example, a scene in space typically begins as a timeline sequence of comms calls between NPCs (some were planned to just be comms calls but were upgraded to full cinematic cutaways over time). In these scenes, the player will be able to experience the action in first-person using the ‘break-free’ feature should they want to.
Once the calls are complete, they team lay down the action elements. This allows them to space out the comms as needed and begin crucial nav-spline work. Control points, ship speed, spline tangents, roll, pitch, and yaw all need to be dialed in carefully.
For example, the splines could start with the player approaching several mercs to scan them. While laying this out, the team pay significant attention to the direction, color, and intensity of the sun (or where it will be in the final mission layout), as the wrong angle could mean the whole scene is ‘flat-lit’ and less interesting.
Another consideration is how costumes, ship loadouts, and cockpits could change, as some aren’t finished or feature meshwork being worked on later in the milestone. A balance needs to be struck in terms of what the designers want to do and what they can do on a first pass, as the spline skeleton needs to be dialed in first. Realistic pathing is vital here, particularly as the scene will be viewable from either first or third person and from a variety of angles.
The current milestone features a scene around a table at a noodle bar, which has challenges very different from animating kilometer-long nav-splines. For example, a character eating noodles with chopsticks means the team have to animate fingers, sticks, a box, and noodles (and possibly film themselves eating on their lunch break for reference). The scene’s state machine must be considered too, with animation idles and fragments in mind. They must also cater for players arriving at varying times due to potential side activities on the way to the scene.
Features (Gameplay)
The SQ42 Feature Team implemented new TrackView weapon functionality to allow the cinematic designers to control characters firing missiles. Technical investigation was completed too, which involved looking at performance and how TrackView could be updated across multiple cores. Currently, it’s single-threaded and automatically pre-caches animations to stop glitches when it’s waiting for an animation to load. SQ42 Features worked with the designers to fix problems with moving the missions to work with object container streaming and went through the requirements of mission-fail conditions. They also continued to help develop the firing range and get it fully working in-game.
Gameplay Story
The Gameplay Story Team completed a mo-cap session before the end of 2020, so they kicked off the year by moving the captures through the pipeline. They also finished a handful of polish tasks remaining for the Morrow Tour. Alongside this, they began updating and maintaining their scenes from chapter 4a, which is a wider development focus of Q1 2021. However, progress was also made on other game sections, including the first chapter. This involved preliminary work on the Correl walk-and-talk and adding placeholder audio to additional vignettes.
Graphics
The Graphics Team started the year finalizing several outstanding bugs and features that didn’t quite make the Q4 deadline. Once complete, focus moved to the Gen12 renderer, which received various improvements to features like depth-of-field. A major rewrite of the tessellation shaders was done to streamline the code and fix a number of bugs. The shadow pass conversion was also completed, with the team now looking to see if they can enable this codepath by default.
Level Design
The Social Design Team benefitted from their focus towards the end of 2020, using the tech and tools they upgraded to make great progress on scenes and narrative sections. The Level Design Team are currently working through all ground-based FPS environments, adding additional setup for the various player paths. The Space/Dogfight Team worked alongside AI to bring an enemy faction’s combat behaviors to the ‘gold standard.’
Narrative
The Narrative Team continued to work closely with the Design Team to review progress on various levels. This included calling out potential moments that might require additional dialogue or scenes to either explain gameplay intent or to make areas feel appropriately populated. They then worked with Audio to create placeholder assets utilizing text-to-speech and temporary recordings so they can be reviewed in situ. They also drafted initial ideas for the target range aboard the Idris, which covered everything from general training to game modes. Elsewhere, they supported other departments with environment documents, mission text, and script revisions.
QA
Cinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes worked correctly and are of the expected quality. They also supported the development teams with issues and tested various changes and updates across the project.
Tech Animation
The Technical Animation Team kicked off the year with Xi’an character body and facial rigs and are currently exploring the alien species’ language, body movement, and joint placements. Skinning tests are also underway to ensure the best foundation possible for the animation rigs. Time was also devoted to Vanduul combat behaviors, animation implementation, and head rigging for upcoming cinematics. This tied into rigging work currently underway for creatures found in the PU.
UI
The UI Team worked alongside Vehicles to implement the new Aegis UI HUD style in the Gladius. In parallel, the artists created an updated UI for RSI that will feature in several campaign ships. The UI programmers began the groundwork for an improved Starmap, interior map, and radar. This is a significant project and will take several months to complete but will greatly help with navigation around the game world.
VFX
VFX worked closely with Art and Design to flesh out the interior ‘cells’ of the Coil, with VFX Tech Art taking an active role in moving the location forwards. Progress was also made on chapter 4’s VFX requirements. WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
German
Dies ist ein Cross-Post des Berichts, der kürzlich über den monatlichen Squadron 42 Newsletter verschickt wurde. Wir veröffentlichen ihn ein zweites Mal als Comm-Link, damit die Community leichter darauf zurückgreifen kann.
Achtung Rekruten,
Was ihr gleich lesen werdet, sind die neuesten Informationen über die weitere Entwicklung von Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Dank der Arbeit von engagierten Feldagenten und Agenten haben wir Informationen über das Volt Parallax Elektronengewehr und die UltiFlex Novia Armbrust, die Xi'an Sprache und die Arbeit an allen bodenbasierten FPS Umgebungen aufgedeckt.
Die in dieser Mitteilung enthaltenen Informationen sind äußerst sensibel und es ist von größter Wichtigkeit, dass sie nicht in die falschen Hände geraten. Lösche alle Aufzeichnungen nach dem Lesen.
UEE Marine Oberkommando
AI (General)
Die allgemeine KI-Arbeit im Januar beinhaltete die Verbesserung der Debug-Zeichnung für die spezielle Aktionskomponente, die ein besseres Verständnis dafür ermöglicht, welche Aktionen zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt verfügbar sind. Auch dem Support von Alpha 3.12 und 3.12.1 wurde Zeit gewidmet. Das neue Jahr sah vor allem eine Reorganisation der KI-Teams in eine effizientere Struktur, um den Wissensaustausch und einen ganzheitlicheren Ansatz zur Priorisierung von Aufgaben und Zielen zu fördern.
Die Abteilung ist nun nach Inhalt, Features und Technik aufgeteilt:
AI Content erstellt Behaviors, Usables und andere verwandte Inhalte AI Features implementieren Projektfeatures. Zum Beispiel neue Kampfverhalten und Schiffsmanöver AI Tech kümmert sich um alle Kernfunktionalitäten, die ein eher strukturelles Design erfordern
KI (Inhalt)
Das Content Team hat den Januar damit verbracht, an frühen Versionen der Verhaltensweisen des Ingenieurs, der Hygiene, des Händlers und des Touristen zu arbeiten. Der erste Durchgang des Ingenieurs kümmert sich um die Wartung der Wandpaneele in Schiffen und Hangars, einschließlich der Inspektion der internen Sicherungen und deren Austausch, wenn sie beschädigt sind. Die erste Implementierung des Hygiene-Verhaltens gibt NSCs die Möglichkeit, Toiletten, Waschbecken und Duschen zu benutzen, während der Hawker eine generische Aktivität ist, die verschiedene Straßenverkäufer und Lautsprecher bedient. Zum Beispiel NPCs, die Hotdog- oder Taco-Stände besetzen. Der erste Durchgang des Touristenverhaltens befasst sich mit Charakteren, die in Gebiete gehen und reisen, um sich Sehenswürdigkeiten anzuschauen.
Das Team möchte auch neue Verhaltensweisen in den Bereichen "Freizeit" und "Essen und Trinken" einführen, wie z.B. die Nutzung von Verkaufsautomaten und Arcade-Automaten.
KI (Eigenschaften)
Die KI-Features begannen das Jahr mit der Einführung der ersten Eigenschaften, die die Taktikauswahl der KI-Piloten beeinflussen, was es ihnen ermöglicht, realistischere und persönlichere Begegnungen zu gestalten. Zum Beispiel werden einige Piloten während des Kampfes sicherere Herangehensweisen wählen, während andere auftrumpfen und spezielle Manöver verwenden werden. Auch die Unterstützung für verschiedene Operator-Modi hat begonnen, was es den NPCs ermöglichen wird, die gleichen neuen Funktionalitäten, die den Spielern zur Verfügung stehen, korrekt zu nutzen. Dazu gehört die Einstellung des QT-Modus, wenn sie einen Quantensprung machen wollen, und die Rückkehr in den Standardmodus vor dem Piloten oder Kampf.
Auf der Seite der Gegnerkämpfe nutzen Ausweichaktionen nun den Blend Space. Dies ermöglicht es den NSCs, sich beim Ausweichen korrekt auszurichten, was zu einem flüssigeren und immersiveren Kampferlebnis führt. Es wurden weitere Steuerelemente eingeführt, um Angriffsaktionsgrenzen zu definieren und die Unterbrechung von Kombo-Angriffen zu ermöglichen. KI-Features fügten auch den 'WeaponConfidence'-Status hinzu, der verwendet wird, um das Feuertempo für Charaktere basierend auf ihrer Waffenfertigkeit zu steuern.
KI (Tech)
AI Tech hat eine neue Funktionalität implementiert, um Subsumption Code Events zu validieren. Dies ermöglicht es ihnen, fehlerhafte Setups und fehlende Dateien zu überprüfen und sicherzustellen, dass die von den Ereignissen übertragenen Variablen korrekt konfiguriert sind. Sie haben auch begonnen, Funktionstests für Subsumption Verhalten und Logik zu unterstützen. Um dies zu erreichen, haben sie eine Möglichkeit geschaffen, NPCs aufzufordern, eine benutzerdefinierte Logikzuweisung auszuführen. Dies gibt ihnen eine flexible Möglichkeit, die Ausführung spezifischer Logik an NSCs anzufordern, die sich zum richtigen Zeitpunkt auf das systemische Verhalten stapelt. AI Tech hat auch die Subsumption 'DebugTaskTree' und Subsumption Update optimiert. Die DebugTaskTree-Optimierung reduziert die Laufzeitzuweisung und bringt die Leistung des internen Builds näher an den Release-Build. Das Subsumption Update reduziert die Sperren im Memory Allocator. Lokale Tests haben gezeigt, dass dies etwa 5ms einspart, wenn 500 aktive NPCs zu einer bestimmten Zeit aktualisiert werden.
Animation
Das Animationsteam hat den ganzen Januar über an Spieler-Features gearbeitet. Dazu gehörten das Ausblocken der verletzten Fortbewegung, finale Animationen für montierte Waffen, Volt-Parallaxe-Animationen, Kurzdistanz-Stagger, Mag-Stripping-State-Machine-Blockouts, Zero-G-Traversal und Spieler-Fall-zu-Bewegung-Assets. Auf der KI-Seite implementierte das Team finales Motion Capture für eine Reihe von Sets. Daneben wurden Zustandsautomatengraphen für das Sitzen und Essen in der Kantine, Charakter-Wildlinien, formale Schienenneigung, Automaten-Blockierung, Wartung von Wandpaneelen, den Waffenverkäufer und Wächter-Animationssets entwickelt, um sie mit Patrouillen zu kombinieren.
Für die Kampf-KI lag der Fokus auf der finalen Motion-Capture-Implementierung und den Blockouts für die Vanduul, die den Spielercharakter festhalten.
Kunst (Charaktere)
Im letzten Monat hat Character Art an Kapitel 4a gearbeitet. Das Hauptaugenmerk lag dabei auf Rebecca Trejo. Das Team polierte ihren Kopf, erstellte Haare und entwickelte ein neues Outfit. Der alte Mann erhielt ebenfalls einen Feinschliff, der vor allem das Hinzufügen der neuen Augenanordnung beinhaltete. Auch der Xi'an wurde überarbeitet und an Tech Animation zum Rigging weitergegeben. Ein paar Nebencharaktere erhielten ebenfalls neue Assets und Polishing-Passes.
Kunst (Waffen)
Das Weapon Art Team hat weiter an der Volt Parallax Elektronenwaffe gearbeitet und die Grafik zur "Greybox Complete" gebracht. Der Großteil des Meshes wurde modelliert und das Team ist derzeit dabei, die Waffe zu riggen und zu animieren, bevor es in die finale Art-Phase geht. Die UltiFlex Novia Armbrust durchlief die Final Art Phase und wurde aufgrund der einzigartigen Herausforderungen der Waffe an Tech Art übergeben, um das Rig zu finalisieren.
Anfang des Monats wurde eine Untersuchung des Mag Stripping-Features durchgeführt, um festzustellen, was benötigt wird, sobald die Feature-Arbeiten beginnen. Das Team nutzte diese Gelegenheit, um auch das Grip-Nodes-Setup zu überarbeiten. Schließlich fügte das Team für FPS-Waffen ein neues heilendes Multi-Tool-Attachment hinzu. Außerdem wurden die Batterie und der Ressourcenkanister abnehmbar gemacht, um die Waffe zukunftssicher für zusätzliche Funktionen zu machen. Außerdem wurde mit der Arbeit an einem neuen, eigenständigen Greycat Industrial Cutter Tool begonnen.
Auf der Schiffswaffenseite wurde die Arbeit an der FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB fortgesetzt, die in die finale Phase ging. Am Ende des Monats begann auch die Entwicklung einer komplett neuen Waffe.
Cinematics
Nach einem erfolgreichen Kapitelmeilenstein im Dezember, startete das Cinematics Team das erste von 2021 und polierte weitere Kapitel auf Produktionsqualität. Als das Team die Pipeline für diesen und weitere Meilensteine erstellte, teilte es die Produktionsphasen in separate Durchgänge auf:
Pre-vis: Performance Capture und andere Elemente wie Kameras und FX werden in einer sehr groben Form hinzugefügt. Es wird kein Schnitt gemacht, abgesehen von grundlegenden Mo-Cap-Bearbeitungen im Video-Editor. Kick-off: Ein grundlegender Durchgang, bei dem alle Szenenmitglieder grob ausgerichtet werden, wobei starke Ausrichtungsfehler korrigiert werden. Die Zustandsmaschine wird ebenfalls betrachtet, so dass eine grundlegende Aufteilung der Animationsfragmente vorgenommen wird. Implementierung: Eine vollständige Ausrichtung wird durchgeführt, alle Animationsfragmente werden erstellt (meist auf die richtige Länge) und ein grundlegendes Pose-Matching wird durchgeführt. LookIK wird aktiviert. Produktion: Alle Animationselemente werden auf einen hohen Standard poliert, das Pose-Matching ist abgeschlossen und ein LookIK-Polish-Pass wird durchgeführt, basierend darauf, was der Schauspieler wollte und wohin er schaute. Finalisierung: Der letzte Durchgang vor dem Versand, beinhaltet die Sicherstellung, dass die Finger korrekt animiert sind und eine kleine Detailpolitur.
Der neue Meilenstein beinhaltet sowohl Szenen im Weltraum als auch Szenen in Raumstationen, wobei sich beide in ihren Bedürfnissen und Anforderungen unterscheiden. Zum Beispiel beginnt eine Szene im Weltraum typischerweise als eine Timeline-Sequenz von Comms-Gesprächen zwischen NPCs (einige waren nur als Comms-Gespräche geplant, wurden aber im Laufe der Zeit zu vollen filmischen Cutaways aufgewertet). In diesen Szenen wird der Spieler in der Lage sein, die Action in der ersten Person zu erleben, indem er das 'Break-free'-Feature nutzt, wenn er das möchte.
Sobald die Gespräche abgeschlossen sind, legt das Team die Handlungselemente fest. Dies erlaubt es ihnen, die Comms nach Bedarf zu platzieren und mit der entscheidenden Nav-Spline-Arbeit zu beginnen. Kontrollpunkte, Schiffsgeschwindigkeit, Spline-Tangenten, Roll-, Nick- und Gierwinkel müssen sorgfältig eingestellt werden.
Die Splines könnten zum Beispiel damit beginnen, dass der Spieler sich mehreren Söldnern nähert, um sie zu scannen. Während der Planung sollte das Team auf die Richtung, Farbe und Intensität der Sonne achten (oder darauf, wo sie sich im endgültigen Missionslayout befinden wird), da ein falscher Winkel bedeuten könnte, dass die ganze Szene "flach beleuchtet" und weniger interessant ist.
Eine weitere Überlegung ist, wie sich Kostüme, Schiffsladungen und Cockpits verändern könnten, da einige noch nicht fertig sind oder das Meshwork erst später im Meilenstein bearbeitet wird. Es muss ein Gleichgewicht gefunden werden zwischen dem, was die Designer machen wollen und dem, was sie in einem ersten Durchgang machen können, da das Spline-Skelett zuerst ausgewählt werden muss. Realistisches Pathing ist hier entscheidend, vor allem da die Szene entweder aus der ersten oder dritten Person und aus verschiedenen Winkeln betrachtet werden kann.
Der aktuelle Meilenstein zeigt eine Szene rund um einen Tisch in einer Nudelbar, was ganz andere Herausforderungen mit sich bringt als das Animieren kilometerlanger Nav-Splines. Ein Charakter, der Nudeln mit Stäbchen isst, bedeutet zum Beispiel, dass das Team Finger, Stäbchen, eine Box und Nudeln animieren muss (und sich möglicherweise selbst beim Essen in der Mittagspause als Referenz filmen muss). Die Zustandsmaschine der Szene muss ebenfalls berücksichtigt werden, mit Animations-Idle und Fragmenten im Hinterkopf. Sie müssen auch dafür sorgen, dass die Spieler zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten ankommen, da es auf dem Weg zur Szene zu Nebenaktivitäten kommen kann.
Eigenschaften (Gameplay)
Das SQ42 Feature Team implementierte eine neue TrackView Waffenfunktionalität, die es den Cinematic Designern ermöglicht, Charaktere zu steuern, die Raketen abfeuern. Die technische Untersuchung wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen, wobei die Leistung untersucht wurde und wie TrackView über mehrere Kerne hinweg aktualisiert werden kann. Momentan ist es single-threaded und speichert Animationen automatisch im Pre-Cache, um Glitches zu verhindern, wenn es auf das Laden einer Animation wartet. SQ42 Features hat mit den Designern zusammengearbeitet, um Probleme mit dem Verschieben der Missionen zu beheben, damit sie mit dem Streaming von Objekt-Containern funktionieren, und ist die Anforderungen der Missions-Fail-Bedingungen durchgegangen. Sie halfen auch bei der Entwicklung des Schießstandes und brachten ihn im Spiel zum Laufen.
Gameplay Geschichte
Das Gameplay-Story-Team hat eine Mo-Cap-Session vor Ende 2020 abgeschlossen, so dass sie das Jahr damit begonnen haben, die Captures durch die Pipeline zu bewegen. Außerdem beendeten sie eine Handvoll Polishing-Aufgaben, die für die Morrow-Tour noch ausstanden. Parallel dazu begannen sie mit der Aktualisierung und Pflege der Szenen aus Kapitel 4a, was ein weiterer Entwicklungsschwerpunkt von Q1 2021 ist. Aber auch an anderen Spielabschnitten, einschließlich des ersten Kapitels, wurden Fortschritte erzielt. Dazu gehörten Vorarbeiten zum Correl-Walk-and-Talk und das Hinzufügen von Platzhalter-Audio zu weiteren Vignetten.
Grafiken
Das Grafikteam hat das Jahr damit begonnen, einige ausstehende Bugs und Features zu finalisieren, die es nicht ganz bis zur Deadline im 4. Sobald dies abgeschlossen war, wurde der Fokus auf den Gen12 Renderer gelegt, der verschiedene Verbesserungen für Features wie die Tiefenschärfe erhielt. Die Tessellationsshader wurden grundlegend überarbeitet, um den Code zu straffen und eine Reihe von Fehlern zu beheben. Die Schattenpass-Konvertierung wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen und das Team prüft nun, ob es diesen Codepfad standardmäßig aktivieren kann.
Level Design
Das Social Design Team profitierte von seiner Fokussierung gegen Ende 2020 und nutzte die aufgerüstete Technik und Tools, um große Fortschritte bei Szenen und narrativen Abschnitten zu machen. Das Level Design Team arbeitet sich derzeit durch alle bodenbasierten FPS-Umgebungen und fügt zusätzliches Setup für die verschiedenen Spielerpfade hinzu. Das Space/Dogfight Team arbeitete zusammen mit der KI, um das Kampfverhalten einer gegnerischen Fraktion auf den 'Goldstandard' zu bringen.
Narrative
Das Narrative Team arbeitete weiterhin eng mit dem Design Team zusammen, um den Fortschritt auf verschiedenen Ebenen zu überprüfen. Dazu gehörte auch das Aufzeigen von potentiellen Momenten, die zusätzliche Dialoge oder Szenen benötigen, um entweder die Absicht des Spiels zu erklären oder um die Gebiete angemessen zu bevölkern. Sie arbeiteten dann mit dem Audio-Team zusammen, um Platzhalter-Assets zu erstellen, die Text-to-Speech und temporäre Aufnahmen nutzen, damit sie vor Ort überprüft werden können. Sie entwarfen auch erste Ideen für den Zielbereich an Bord der Idris, die alles vom allgemeinen Training bis hin zu Spielmodi abdeckten. An anderer Stelle unterstützten sie andere Abteilungen mit Umgebungsdokumenten, Missionstexten und Skriptüberarbeitungen.
QA
Cinematics verließ sich weiterhin auf die QA für Aufnahmen jedes Levels, damit sie sicherstellen konnten, dass die Szenen korrekt funktionieren und die erwartete Qualität haben. Sie unterstützten auch die Entwicklungsteams bei Problemen und testeten verschiedene Änderungen und Updates im gesamten Projekt.
Tech Animation
Das Technical Animation Team begann das Jahr mit den Körper- und Gesichts-Rigs der Xi'an-Charaktere und erforscht derzeit die Sprache der Alien-Spezies, die Körperbewegungen und die Platzierung der Gelenke. Auch Skinning-Tests sind im Gange, um die bestmögliche Grundlage für die Animations-Rigs zu gewährleisten. Es wurde auch Zeit für das Kampfverhalten der Vanduul, die Implementierung der Animationen und das Kopf-Rigging für die kommenden Cinematics aufgewendet. Dies knüpfte an die Rigging-Arbeiten an, die derzeit für die Kreaturen in der PU durchgeführt werden.
UI
Das UI-Team arbeitete zusammen mit Vehicles an der Implementierung des neuen Aegis UI HUD-Stils im Gladius. Parallel dazu erstellten die Künstler ein aktualisiertes UI für RSI, das in mehreren Kampagnenschiffen zum Einsatz kommen wird. Die UI-Programmierer begannen mit den Vorarbeiten für eine verbesserte Starmap, Innenkarte und Radar. Dies ist ein bedeutendes Projekt und wird mehrere Monate in Anspruch nehmen, aber es wird die Navigation in der Spielwelt erheblich erleichtern.
VFX
VFX arbeitete eng mit Art und Design zusammen, um die inneren "Zellen" der Spule zu gestalten, wobei VFX Tech Art eine aktive Rolle dabei spielte, den Ort voranzubringen. Auch bei den VFX-Anforderungen von Kapitel 4 wurden Fortschritte gemacht. WIR SEHEN UNS NÄCHSTEN MONAT WIEDER...
Achtung Rekruten,
Was ihr gleich lesen werdet, sind die neuesten Informationen über die weitere Entwicklung von Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Dank der Arbeit von engagierten Feldagenten und Agenten haben wir Informationen über das Volt Parallax Elektronengewehr und die UltiFlex Novia Armbrust, die Xi'an Sprache und die Arbeit an allen bodenbasierten FPS Umgebungen aufgedeckt.
Die in dieser Mitteilung enthaltenen Informationen sind äußerst sensibel und es ist von größter Wichtigkeit, dass sie nicht in die falschen Hände geraten. Lösche alle Aufzeichnungen nach dem Lesen.
UEE Marine Oberkommando
AI (General)
Die allgemeine KI-Arbeit im Januar beinhaltete die Verbesserung der Debug-Zeichnung für die spezielle Aktionskomponente, die ein besseres Verständnis dafür ermöglicht, welche Aktionen zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt verfügbar sind. Auch dem Support von Alpha 3.12 und 3.12.1 wurde Zeit gewidmet. Das neue Jahr sah vor allem eine Reorganisation der KI-Teams in eine effizientere Struktur, um den Wissensaustausch und einen ganzheitlicheren Ansatz zur Priorisierung von Aufgaben und Zielen zu fördern.
Die Abteilung ist nun nach Inhalt, Features und Technik aufgeteilt:
AI Content erstellt Behaviors, Usables und andere verwandte Inhalte AI Features implementieren Projektfeatures. Zum Beispiel neue Kampfverhalten und Schiffsmanöver AI Tech kümmert sich um alle Kernfunktionalitäten, die ein eher strukturelles Design erfordern
KI (Inhalt)
Das Content Team hat den Januar damit verbracht, an frühen Versionen der Verhaltensweisen des Ingenieurs, der Hygiene, des Händlers und des Touristen zu arbeiten. Der erste Durchgang des Ingenieurs kümmert sich um die Wartung der Wandpaneele in Schiffen und Hangars, einschließlich der Inspektion der internen Sicherungen und deren Austausch, wenn sie beschädigt sind. Die erste Implementierung des Hygiene-Verhaltens gibt NSCs die Möglichkeit, Toiletten, Waschbecken und Duschen zu benutzen, während der Hawker eine generische Aktivität ist, die verschiedene Straßenverkäufer und Lautsprecher bedient. Zum Beispiel NPCs, die Hotdog- oder Taco-Stände besetzen. Der erste Durchgang des Touristenverhaltens befasst sich mit Charakteren, die in Gebiete gehen und reisen, um sich Sehenswürdigkeiten anzuschauen.
Das Team möchte auch neue Verhaltensweisen in den Bereichen "Freizeit" und "Essen und Trinken" einführen, wie z.B. die Nutzung von Verkaufsautomaten und Arcade-Automaten.
KI (Eigenschaften)
Die KI-Features begannen das Jahr mit der Einführung der ersten Eigenschaften, die die Taktikauswahl der KI-Piloten beeinflussen, was es ihnen ermöglicht, realistischere und persönlichere Begegnungen zu gestalten. Zum Beispiel werden einige Piloten während des Kampfes sicherere Herangehensweisen wählen, während andere auftrumpfen und spezielle Manöver verwenden werden. Auch die Unterstützung für verschiedene Operator-Modi hat begonnen, was es den NPCs ermöglichen wird, die gleichen neuen Funktionalitäten, die den Spielern zur Verfügung stehen, korrekt zu nutzen. Dazu gehört die Einstellung des QT-Modus, wenn sie einen Quantensprung machen wollen, und die Rückkehr in den Standardmodus vor dem Piloten oder Kampf.
Auf der Seite der Gegnerkämpfe nutzen Ausweichaktionen nun den Blend Space. Dies ermöglicht es den NSCs, sich beim Ausweichen korrekt auszurichten, was zu einem flüssigeren und immersiveren Kampferlebnis führt. Es wurden weitere Steuerelemente eingeführt, um Angriffsaktionsgrenzen zu definieren und die Unterbrechung von Kombo-Angriffen zu ermöglichen. KI-Features fügten auch den 'WeaponConfidence'-Status hinzu, der verwendet wird, um das Feuertempo für Charaktere basierend auf ihrer Waffenfertigkeit zu steuern.
KI (Tech)
AI Tech hat eine neue Funktionalität implementiert, um Subsumption Code Events zu validieren. Dies ermöglicht es ihnen, fehlerhafte Setups und fehlende Dateien zu überprüfen und sicherzustellen, dass die von den Ereignissen übertragenen Variablen korrekt konfiguriert sind. Sie haben auch begonnen, Funktionstests für Subsumption Verhalten und Logik zu unterstützen. Um dies zu erreichen, haben sie eine Möglichkeit geschaffen, NPCs aufzufordern, eine benutzerdefinierte Logikzuweisung auszuführen. Dies gibt ihnen eine flexible Möglichkeit, die Ausführung spezifischer Logik an NSCs anzufordern, die sich zum richtigen Zeitpunkt auf das systemische Verhalten stapelt. AI Tech hat auch die Subsumption 'DebugTaskTree' und Subsumption Update optimiert. Die DebugTaskTree-Optimierung reduziert die Laufzeitzuweisung und bringt die Leistung des internen Builds näher an den Release-Build. Das Subsumption Update reduziert die Sperren im Memory Allocator. Lokale Tests haben gezeigt, dass dies etwa 5ms einspart, wenn 500 aktive NPCs zu einer bestimmten Zeit aktualisiert werden.
Animation
Das Animationsteam hat den ganzen Januar über an Spieler-Features gearbeitet. Dazu gehörten das Ausblocken der verletzten Fortbewegung, finale Animationen für montierte Waffen, Volt-Parallaxe-Animationen, Kurzdistanz-Stagger, Mag-Stripping-State-Machine-Blockouts, Zero-G-Traversal und Spieler-Fall-zu-Bewegung-Assets. Auf der KI-Seite implementierte das Team finales Motion Capture für eine Reihe von Sets. Daneben wurden Zustandsautomatengraphen für das Sitzen und Essen in der Kantine, Charakter-Wildlinien, formale Schienenneigung, Automaten-Blockierung, Wartung von Wandpaneelen, den Waffenverkäufer und Wächter-Animationssets entwickelt, um sie mit Patrouillen zu kombinieren.
Für die Kampf-KI lag der Fokus auf der finalen Motion-Capture-Implementierung und den Blockouts für die Vanduul, die den Spielercharakter festhalten.
Kunst (Charaktere)
Im letzten Monat hat Character Art an Kapitel 4a gearbeitet. Das Hauptaugenmerk lag dabei auf Rebecca Trejo. Das Team polierte ihren Kopf, erstellte Haare und entwickelte ein neues Outfit. Der alte Mann erhielt ebenfalls einen Feinschliff, der vor allem das Hinzufügen der neuen Augenanordnung beinhaltete. Auch der Xi'an wurde überarbeitet und an Tech Animation zum Rigging weitergegeben. Ein paar Nebencharaktere erhielten ebenfalls neue Assets und Polishing-Passes.
Kunst (Waffen)
Das Weapon Art Team hat weiter an der Volt Parallax Elektronenwaffe gearbeitet und die Grafik zur "Greybox Complete" gebracht. Der Großteil des Meshes wurde modelliert und das Team ist derzeit dabei, die Waffe zu riggen und zu animieren, bevor es in die finale Art-Phase geht. Die UltiFlex Novia Armbrust durchlief die Final Art Phase und wurde aufgrund der einzigartigen Herausforderungen der Waffe an Tech Art übergeben, um das Rig zu finalisieren.
Anfang des Monats wurde eine Untersuchung des Mag Stripping-Features durchgeführt, um festzustellen, was benötigt wird, sobald die Feature-Arbeiten beginnen. Das Team nutzte diese Gelegenheit, um auch das Grip-Nodes-Setup zu überarbeiten. Schließlich fügte das Team für FPS-Waffen ein neues heilendes Multi-Tool-Attachment hinzu. Außerdem wurden die Batterie und der Ressourcenkanister abnehmbar gemacht, um die Waffe zukunftssicher für zusätzliche Funktionen zu machen. Außerdem wurde mit der Arbeit an einem neuen, eigenständigen Greycat Industrial Cutter Tool begonnen.
Auf der Schiffswaffenseite wurde die Arbeit an der FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB fortgesetzt, die in die finale Phase ging. Am Ende des Monats begann auch die Entwicklung einer komplett neuen Waffe.
Cinematics
Nach einem erfolgreichen Kapitelmeilenstein im Dezember, startete das Cinematics Team das erste von 2021 und polierte weitere Kapitel auf Produktionsqualität. Als das Team die Pipeline für diesen und weitere Meilensteine erstellte, teilte es die Produktionsphasen in separate Durchgänge auf:
Pre-vis: Performance Capture und andere Elemente wie Kameras und FX werden in einer sehr groben Form hinzugefügt. Es wird kein Schnitt gemacht, abgesehen von grundlegenden Mo-Cap-Bearbeitungen im Video-Editor. Kick-off: Ein grundlegender Durchgang, bei dem alle Szenenmitglieder grob ausgerichtet werden, wobei starke Ausrichtungsfehler korrigiert werden. Die Zustandsmaschine wird ebenfalls betrachtet, so dass eine grundlegende Aufteilung der Animationsfragmente vorgenommen wird. Implementierung: Eine vollständige Ausrichtung wird durchgeführt, alle Animationsfragmente werden erstellt (meist auf die richtige Länge) und ein grundlegendes Pose-Matching wird durchgeführt. LookIK wird aktiviert. Produktion: Alle Animationselemente werden auf einen hohen Standard poliert, das Pose-Matching ist abgeschlossen und ein LookIK-Polish-Pass wird durchgeführt, basierend darauf, was der Schauspieler wollte und wohin er schaute. Finalisierung: Der letzte Durchgang vor dem Versand, beinhaltet die Sicherstellung, dass die Finger korrekt animiert sind und eine kleine Detailpolitur.
Der neue Meilenstein beinhaltet sowohl Szenen im Weltraum als auch Szenen in Raumstationen, wobei sich beide in ihren Bedürfnissen und Anforderungen unterscheiden. Zum Beispiel beginnt eine Szene im Weltraum typischerweise als eine Timeline-Sequenz von Comms-Gesprächen zwischen NPCs (einige waren nur als Comms-Gespräche geplant, wurden aber im Laufe der Zeit zu vollen filmischen Cutaways aufgewertet). In diesen Szenen wird der Spieler in der Lage sein, die Action in der ersten Person zu erleben, indem er das 'Break-free'-Feature nutzt, wenn er das möchte.
Sobald die Gespräche abgeschlossen sind, legt das Team die Handlungselemente fest. Dies erlaubt es ihnen, die Comms nach Bedarf zu platzieren und mit der entscheidenden Nav-Spline-Arbeit zu beginnen. Kontrollpunkte, Schiffsgeschwindigkeit, Spline-Tangenten, Roll-, Nick- und Gierwinkel müssen sorgfältig eingestellt werden.
Die Splines könnten zum Beispiel damit beginnen, dass der Spieler sich mehreren Söldnern nähert, um sie zu scannen. Während der Planung sollte das Team auf die Richtung, Farbe und Intensität der Sonne achten (oder darauf, wo sie sich im endgültigen Missionslayout befinden wird), da ein falscher Winkel bedeuten könnte, dass die ganze Szene "flach beleuchtet" und weniger interessant ist.
Eine weitere Überlegung ist, wie sich Kostüme, Schiffsladungen und Cockpits verändern könnten, da einige noch nicht fertig sind oder das Meshwork erst später im Meilenstein bearbeitet wird. Es muss ein Gleichgewicht gefunden werden zwischen dem, was die Designer machen wollen und dem, was sie in einem ersten Durchgang machen können, da das Spline-Skelett zuerst ausgewählt werden muss. Realistisches Pathing ist hier entscheidend, vor allem da die Szene entweder aus der ersten oder dritten Person und aus verschiedenen Winkeln betrachtet werden kann.
Der aktuelle Meilenstein zeigt eine Szene rund um einen Tisch in einer Nudelbar, was ganz andere Herausforderungen mit sich bringt als das Animieren kilometerlanger Nav-Splines. Ein Charakter, der Nudeln mit Stäbchen isst, bedeutet zum Beispiel, dass das Team Finger, Stäbchen, eine Box und Nudeln animieren muss (und sich möglicherweise selbst beim Essen in der Mittagspause als Referenz filmen muss). Die Zustandsmaschine der Szene muss ebenfalls berücksichtigt werden, mit Animations-Idle und Fragmenten im Hinterkopf. Sie müssen auch dafür sorgen, dass die Spieler zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten ankommen, da es auf dem Weg zur Szene zu Nebenaktivitäten kommen kann.
Eigenschaften (Gameplay)
Das SQ42 Feature Team implementierte eine neue TrackView Waffenfunktionalität, die es den Cinematic Designern ermöglicht, Charaktere zu steuern, die Raketen abfeuern. Die technische Untersuchung wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen, wobei die Leistung untersucht wurde und wie TrackView über mehrere Kerne hinweg aktualisiert werden kann. Momentan ist es single-threaded und speichert Animationen automatisch im Pre-Cache, um Glitches zu verhindern, wenn es auf das Laden einer Animation wartet. SQ42 Features hat mit den Designern zusammengearbeitet, um Probleme mit dem Verschieben der Missionen zu beheben, damit sie mit dem Streaming von Objekt-Containern funktionieren, und ist die Anforderungen der Missions-Fail-Bedingungen durchgegangen. Sie halfen auch bei der Entwicklung des Schießstandes und brachten ihn im Spiel zum Laufen.
Gameplay Geschichte
Das Gameplay-Story-Team hat eine Mo-Cap-Session vor Ende 2020 abgeschlossen, so dass sie das Jahr damit begonnen haben, die Captures durch die Pipeline zu bewegen. Außerdem beendeten sie eine Handvoll Polishing-Aufgaben, die für die Morrow-Tour noch ausstanden. Parallel dazu begannen sie mit der Aktualisierung und Pflege der Szenen aus Kapitel 4a, was ein weiterer Entwicklungsschwerpunkt von Q1 2021 ist. Aber auch an anderen Spielabschnitten, einschließlich des ersten Kapitels, wurden Fortschritte erzielt. Dazu gehörten Vorarbeiten zum Correl-Walk-and-Talk und das Hinzufügen von Platzhalter-Audio zu weiteren Vignetten.
Grafiken
Das Grafikteam hat das Jahr damit begonnen, einige ausstehende Bugs und Features zu finalisieren, die es nicht ganz bis zur Deadline im 4. Sobald dies abgeschlossen war, wurde der Fokus auf den Gen12 Renderer gelegt, der verschiedene Verbesserungen für Features wie die Tiefenschärfe erhielt. Die Tessellationsshader wurden grundlegend überarbeitet, um den Code zu straffen und eine Reihe von Fehlern zu beheben. Die Schattenpass-Konvertierung wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen und das Team prüft nun, ob es diesen Codepfad standardmäßig aktivieren kann.
Level Design
Das Social Design Team profitierte von seiner Fokussierung gegen Ende 2020 und nutzte die aufgerüstete Technik und Tools, um große Fortschritte bei Szenen und narrativen Abschnitten zu machen. Das Level Design Team arbeitet sich derzeit durch alle bodenbasierten FPS-Umgebungen und fügt zusätzliches Setup für die verschiedenen Spielerpfade hinzu. Das Space/Dogfight Team arbeitete zusammen mit der KI, um das Kampfverhalten einer gegnerischen Fraktion auf den 'Goldstandard' zu bringen.
Narrative
Das Narrative Team arbeitete weiterhin eng mit dem Design Team zusammen, um den Fortschritt auf verschiedenen Ebenen zu überprüfen. Dazu gehörte auch das Aufzeigen von potentiellen Momenten, die zusätzliche Dialoge oder Szenen benötigen, um entweder die Absicht des Spiels zu erklären oder um die Gebiete angemessen zu bevölkern. Sie arbeiteten dann mit dem Audio-Team zusammen, um Platzhalter-Assets zu erstellen, die Text-to-Speech und temporäre Aufnahmen nutzen, damit sie vor Ort überprüft werden können. Sie entwarfen auch erste Ideen für den Zielbereich an Bord der Idris, die alles vom allgemeinen Training bis hin zu Spielmodi abdeckten. An anderer Stelle unterstützten sie andere Abteilungen mit Umgebungsdokumenten, Missionstexten und Skriptüberarbeitungen.
QA
Cinematics verließ sich weiterhin auf die QA für Aufnahmen jedes Levels, damit sie sicherstellen konnten, dass die Szenen korrekt funktionieren und die erwartete Qualität haben. Sie unterstützten auch die Entwicklungsteams bei Problemen und testeten verschiedene Änderungen und Updates im gesamten Projekt.
Tech Animation
Das Technical Animation Team begann das Jahr mit den Körper- und Gesichts-Rigs der Xi'an-Charaktere und erforscht derzeit die Sprache der Alien-Spezies, die Körperbewegungen und die Platzierung der Gelenke. Auch Skinning-Tests sind im Gange, um die bestmögliche Grundlage für die Animations-Rigs zu gewährleisten. Es wurde auch Zeit für das Kampfverhalten der Vanduul, die Implementierung der Animationen und das Kopf-Rigging für die kommenden Cinematics aufgewendet. Dies knüpfte an die Rigging-Arbeiten an, die derzeit für die Kreaturen in der PU durchgeführt werden.
UI
Das UI-Team arbeitete zusammen mit Vehicles an der Implementierung des neuen Aegis UI HUD-Stils im Gladius. Parallel dazu erstellten die Künstler ein aktualisiertes UI für RSI, das in mehreren Kampagnenschiffen zum Einsatz kommen wird. Die UI-Programmierer begannen mit den Vorarbeiten für eine verbesserte Starmap, Innenkarte und Radar. Dies ist ein bedeutendes Projekt und wird mehrere Monate in Anspruch nehmen, aber es wird die Navigation in der Spielwelt erheblich erleichtern.
VFX
VFX arbeitete eng mit Art und Design zusammen, um die inneren "Zellen" der Spule zu gestalten, wobei VFX Tech Art eine aktive Rolle dabei spielte, den Ort voranzubringen. Auch bei den VFX-Anforderungen von Kapitel 4 wurden Fortschritte gemacht. WIR SEHEN UNS NÄCHSTEN MONAT WIEDER...
Chinese
This is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We’re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.
Attention Recruits,
What you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Thanks to the work of dedicated field agents and operatives, we’ve uncovered information on the Volt Parallax electron rifle and UltiFlex Novia crossbow, the Xi’an language, and work continues on all ground-based FPS environments.
The information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.
UEE Naval High Command AI (General)
January’s general AI work included improving debug draw for the special action component that allows for a better understanding of which actions are available at any given time. Time was also dedicated to the support of Alpha 3.12 and 3.12.1. Most notably, the new year saw a reorganization of the AI teams into a more efficient structure to encourage knowledge sharing and a more holistic approach to prioritizing tasks and goals.
The department is now split by content, features, and tech: AI Content create behaviors, usables, and other related content
AI Features implement project features. For example, new combat behaviors and ship maneuvers
AI Tech handles all core functionalities that require a more structural design
AI (Content)
The Content Team spent January working on early versions of the engineer, hygiene, hawker, and tourist behaviors. The first pass on the engineer handles maintenance operations for wall panels inside ships and hangars, including inspecting internal fuses and replacing them if damaged. The initial implementation of the hygiene behavior gives NPCs the ability to use toilets, sinks, and showers, while the Hawker is a generic activity that handles various street vendors and speakers. For example, NPCs manning hotdog or taco stands. The first pass on the tourist behavior deals with characters going to and traveling around areas to look at points of interest.
The team are also looking to introduce new behaviors into the ‘leisure’ and ‘eat and drink’ activities, such as vending and arcade machine use.
AI (Features)
AI Features started the year by introducing the first traits affecting AI pilot tactic selection, which allows them to craft more realistic and personal encounters. For example, some pilots will choose safer approaches during combat while others will show-off and use specialist maneuvers. Support for different operator modes began too, which will enable NPCs to correctly use the same new functionalities exposed to players. This includes setting QT mode when they want to quantum jump and returning to the default mode before piloting or fighting.
On the enemy-combat side, dodge actions now utilize blend space. This allows NPCs to align correctly when dodging for a more fluid and immersive combat experience. More controls were introduced to define attack-action limits and to allow the interruption of combo attacks. AI Features also added the ’WeaponConfidence’ stat that’s used to control the firing pace for characters based on their weapon proficiency.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech implemented new functionality to validate Subsumption code events. This allows them to verify bad setups, missing files, and ensure that variables carried by events are configured correctly. They also began supporting feature tests for Subsumption behavior and logic. To achieve this, they exposed a way to request that NPCs execute a custom logic assignment. This gives them a flexible way to request the execution of specific logic to NPCs that stacks on top of the systemic behaviors at the appropriate time. AI Tech also optimized the Subsumption ‘DebugTaskTree’ and Subsumption update. The DebugTaskTree optimization reduces runtime allocation, bringing the performance of the internal build closer to the release build. The Subsumption update reduces locks in the memory allocator. Local tests have shown that this saves around 5ms when updating 500 active NPCs at a given time.
Animation
The Animation Team worked on player features throughout January. This included blocking out of hurt locomotion, final animations for mounted guns, Volt Parallax animations, short-distance staggers, mag-stripping state machine blockouts, zero-g traversal, and player fall-to-move-forward assets. On the AI side, the team implemented final motion capture for a number of sets. Alongside this they progressed with state machine graphs for mess hall sitting and eating, character wildlines, formal rail-leaning, vending machine blocking, wall panel maintenance, the weapon vendor, and guard animation sets to combine them with patrolling.
For Combat AI, focus was on final motion capture implementation and blockouts for the Vanduul pinning the player character down.
Art (Characters)
Last month, Character Art worked on Chapter 4a. Their main focus was on Rebecca Trejo, with the team polishing her head, creating hair, and developing a new outfit. Old Man received polish as well, which predominately involved adding the new eye assembly. Revisions to the Xi’an were also made and passed onto Tech Animation for rigging. A few minor characters also received new assets and polish passes.
Art (Weapons)
The Weapon Art Team continued to work on the Volt Parallax electron rifle, taking the art to ‘greybox complete.’ The majority of the mesh was modeled and the team are currently rigging and animating the weapon before heading further into the final art phase. The UltiFlex Novia crossbow progressed through final art and was handed over to Tech Art to finalize the rig due to the unique challenges of the weapon. Early in the month, an investigation was made into the mag stripping feature to assess what will be needed once feature work starts. The team took this opportunity to make a pass on the grip-nodes setup too. Finally for FPS weapons, the team added a new healing Multi-Tool attachment. They also updated the battery and resource canister to be detachable to futureproof the weapon for additional functionality. Work also began on a new standalone Greycat Industrial cutter tool. On the ship weapons side, work continued on the FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB, which moved to final art. At the end of the month, development began on an all-new weapon too.
Cinematics
Following on from a successful chapter milestone in December, the Cinematics Team kicked off the first of 2021, polishing further chapters to production quality. When the team created the pipeline for this and further milestones, they divided the production phases into separate passes: Pre-vis: Performance capture and other elements like cameras and FX are added in a very crude form. No editing is done other than basic mo-cap edits from the video editor.
Kick-off: A basic pass where all scene members are loosely aligned, though heavy misalignment is corrected. The state machine is also looked at, so a basic break-up of animation fragments is undertaken.
Implementation: Full alignment is done, all animation fragments are created (mostly to correct length) and basic pose-matching is completed. LookIK is enabled.
Production: All animation elements are polished to a high standard, all pose matching is complete, and a LookIK polish pass is done based on what the actor was going for and where they were looking.
Finalization: The final pass before shipping, includes ensuring fingers are animated correctly and a minor detail polish.
The new milestone contains both scenes in space and scenes inside space stations, with both of them differing in needs and requirements. For example, a scene in space typically begins as a timeline sequence of comms calls between NPCs (some were planned to just be comms calls but were upgraded to full cinematic cutaways over time). In these scenes, the player will be able to experience the action in first-person using the ‘break-free’ feature should they want to.
Once the calls are complete, they team lay down the action elements. This allows them to space out the comms as needed and begin crucial nav-spline work. Control points, ship speed, spline tangents, roll, pitch, and yaw all need to be dialed in carefully.
For example, the splines could start with the player approaching several mercs to scan them. While laying this out, the team pay significant attention to the direction, color, and intensity of the sun (or where it will be in the final mission layout), as the wrong angle could mean the whole scene is ‘flat-lit’ and less interesting.
Another consideration is how costumes, ship loadouts, and cockpits could change, as some aren’t finished or feature meshwork being worked on later in the milestone. A balance needs to be struck in terms of what the designers want to do and what they can do on a first pass, as the spline skeleton needs to be dialed in first. Realistic pathing is vital here, particularly as the scene will be viewable from either first or third person and from a variety of angles.
The current milestone features a scene around a table at a noodle bar, which has challenges very different from animating kilometer-long nav-splines. For example, a character eating noodles with chopsticks means the team have to animate fingers, sticks, a box, and noodles (and possibly film themselves eating on their lunch break for reference). The scene’s state machine must be considered too, with animation idles and fragments in mind. They must also cater for players arriving at varying times due to potential side activities on the way to the scene.
Features (Gameplay)
The SQ42 Feature Team implemented new TrackView weapon functionality to allow the cinematic designers to control characters firing missiles. Technical investigation was completed too, which involved looking at performance and how TrackView could be updated across multiple cores. Currently, it’s single-threaded and automatically pre-caches animations to stop glitches when it’s waiting for an animation to load. SQ42 Features worked with the designers to fix problems with moving the missions to work with object container streaming and went through the requirements of mission-fail conditions. They also continued to help develop the firing range and get it fully working in-game.
Gameplay Story
The Gameplay Story Team completed a mo-cap session before the end of 2020, so they kicked off the year by moving the captures through the pipeline. They also finished a handful of polish tasks remaining for the Morrow Tour. Alongside this, they began updating and maintaining their scenes from chapter 4a, which is a wider development focus of Q1 2021. However, progress was also made on other game sections, including the first chapter. This involved preliminary work on the Correl walk-and-talk and adding placeholder audio to additional vignettes.
Graphics
The Graphics Team started the year finalizing several outstanding bugs and features that didn’t quite make the Q4 deadline. Once complete, focus moved to the Gen12 renderer, which received various improvements to features like depth-of-field. A major rewrite of the tessellation shaders was done to streamline the code and fix a number of bugs. The shadow pass conversion was also completed, with the team now looking to see if they can enable this codepath by default.
Level Design
The Social Design Team benefitted from their focus towards the end of 2020, using the tech and tools they upgraded to make great progress on scenes and narrative sections. The Level Design Team are currently working through all ground-based FPS environments, adding additional setup for the various player paths. The Space/Dogfight Team worked alongside AI to bring an enemy faction’s combat behaviors to the ‘gold standard.’
Narrative
The Narrative Team continued to work closely with the Design Team to review progress on various levels. This included calling out potential moments that might require additional dialogue or scenes to either explain gameplay intent or to make areas feel appropriately populated. They then worked with Audio to create placeholder assets utilizing text-to-speech and temporary recordings so they can be reviewed in situ. They also drafted initial ideas for the target range aboard the Idris, which covered everything from general training to game modes. Elsewhere, they supported other departments with environment documents, mission text, and script revisions.
QA
Cinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes worked correctly and are of the expected quality. They also supported the development teams with issues and tested various changes and updates across the project.
Tech Animation
The Technical Animation Team kicked off the year with Xi’an character body and facial rigs and are currently exploring the alien species’ language, body movement, and joint placements. Skinning tests are also underway to ensure the best foundation possible for the animation rigs. Time was also devoted to Vanduul combat behaviors, animation implementation, and head rigging for upcoming cinematics. This tied into rigging work currently underway for creatures found in the PU.
UI
The UI Team worked alongside Vehicles to implement the new Aegis UI HUD style in the Gladius. In parallel, the artists created an updated UI for RSI that will feature in several campaign ships. The UI programmers began the groundwork for an improved Starmap, interior map, and radar. This is a significant project and will take several months to complete but will greatly help with navigation around the game world.
VFX
VFX worked closely with Art and Design to flesh out the interior ‘cells’ of the Coil, with VFX Tech Art taking an active role in moving the location forwards. Progress was also made on chapter 4’s VFX requirements. WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
Attention Recruits,
What you are about to read is the latest information on the continuing development of Squadron 42 (SCI des: SQ42).
Thanks to the work of dedicated field agents and operatives, we’ve uncovered information on the Volt Parallax electron rifle and UltiFlex Novia crossbow, the Xi’an language, and work continues on all ground-based FPS environments.
The information contained in this communication is extremely sensitive and it is of paramount importance that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Purge all records after reading.
UEE Naval High Command AI (General)
January’s general AI work included improving debug draw for the special action component that allows for a better understanding of which actions are available at any given time. Time was also dedicated to the support of Alpha 3.12 and 3.12.1. Most notably, the new year saw a reorganization of the AI teams into a more efficient structure to encourage knowledge sharing and a more holistic approach to prioritizing tasks and goals.
The department is now split by content, features, and tech: AI Content create behaviors, usables, and other related content
AI Features implement project features. For example, new combat behaviors and ship maneuvers
AI Tech handles all core functionalities that require a more structural design
AI (Content)
The Content Team spent January working on early versions of the engineer, hygiene, hawker, and tourist behaviors. The first pass on the engineer handles maintenance operations for wall panels inside ships and hangars, including inspecting internal fuses and replacing them if damaged. The initial implementation of the hygiene behavior gives NPCs the ability to use toilets, sinks, and showers, while the Hawker is a generic activity that handles various street vendors and speakers. For example, NPCs manning hotdog or taco stands. The first pass on the tourist behavior deals with characters going to and traveling around areas to look at points of interest.
The team are also looking to introduce new behaviors into the ‘leisure’ and ‘eat and drink’ activities, such as vending and arcade machine use.
AI (Features)
AI Features started the year by introducing the first traits affecting AI pilot tactic selection, which allows them to craft more realistic and personal encounters. For example, some pilots will choose safer approaches during combat while others will show-off and use specialist maneuvers. Support for different operator modes began too, which will enable NPCs to correctly use the same new functionalities exposed to players. This includes setting QT mode when they want to quantum jump and returning to the default mode before piloting or fighting.
On the enemy-combat side, dodge actions now utilize blend space. This allows NPCs to align correctly when dodging for a more fluid and immersive combat experience. More controls were introduced to define attack-action limits and to allow the interruption of combo attacks. AI Features also added the ’WeaponConfidence’ stat that’s used to control the firing pace for characters based on their weapon proficiency.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech implemented new functionality to validate Subsumption code events. This allows them to verify bad setups, missing files, and ensure that variables carried by events are configured correctly. They also began supporting feature tests for Subsumption behavior and logic. To achieve this, they exposed a way to request that NPCs execute a custom logic assignment. This gives them a flexible way to request the execution of specific logic to NPCs that stacks on top of the systemic behaviors at the appropriate time. AI Tech also optimized the Subsumption ‘DebugTaskTree’ and Subsumption update. The DebugTaskTree optimization reduces runtime allocation, bringing the performance of the internal build closer to the release build. The Subsumption update reduces locks in the memory allocator. Local tests have shown that this saves around 5ms when updating 500 active NPCs at a given time.
Animation
The Animation Team worked on player features throughout January. This included blocking out of hurt locomotion, final animations for mounted guns, Volt Parallax animations, short-distance staggers, mag-stripping state machine blockouts, zero-g traversal, and player fall-to-move-forward assets. On the AI side, the team implemented final motion capture for a number of sets. Alongside this they progressed with state machine graphs for mess hall sitting and eating, character wildlines, formal rail-leaning, vending machine blocking, wall panel maintenance, the weapon vendor, and guard animation sets to combine them with patrolling.
For Combat AI, focus was on final motion capture implementation and blockouts for the Vanduul pinning the player character down.
Art (Characters)
Last month, Character Art worked on Chapter 4a. Their main focus was on Rebecca Trejo, with the team polishing her head, creating hair, and developing a new outfit. Old Man received polish as well, which predominately involved adding the new eye assembly. Revisions to the Xi’an were also made and passed onto Tech Animation for rigging. A few minor characters also received new assets and polish passes.
Art (Weapons)
The Weapon Art Team continued to work on the Volt Parallax electron rifle, taking the art to ‘greybox complete.’ The majority of the mesh was modeled and the team are currently rigging and animating the weapon before heading further into the final art phase. The UltiFlex Novia crossbow progressed through final art and was handed over to Tech Art to finalize the rig due to the unique challenges of the weapon. Early in the month, an investigation was made into the mag stripping feature to assess what will be needed once feature work starts. The team took this opportunity to make a pass on the grip-nodes setup too. Finally for FPS weapons, the team added a new healing Multi-Tool attachment. They also updated the battery and resource canister to be detachable to futureproof the weapon for additional functionality. Work also began on a new standalone Greycat Industrial cutter tool. On the ship weapons side, work continued on the FireStorm Kinetics Colossus MOAB, which moved to final art. At the end of the month, development began on an all-new weapon too.
Cinematics
Following on from a successful chapter milestone in December, the Cinematics Team kicked off the first of 2021, polishing further chapters to production quality. When the team created the pipeline for this and further milestones, they divided the production phases into separate passes: Pre-vis: Performance capture and other elements like cameras and FX are added in a very crude form. No editing is done other than basic mo-cap edits from the video editor.
Kick-off: A basic pass where all scene members are loosely aligned, though heavy misalignment is corrected. The state machine is also looked at, so a basic break-up of animation fragments is undertaken.
Implementation: Full alignment is done, all animation fragments are created (mostly to correct length) and basic pose-matching is completed. LookIK is enabled.
Production: All animation elements are polished to a high standard, all pose matching is complete, and a LookIK polish pass is done based on what the actor was going for and where they were looking.
Finalization: The final pass before shipping, includes ensuring fingers are animated correctly and a minor detail polish.
The new milestone contains both scenes in space and scenes inside space stations, with both of them differing in needs and requirements. For example, a scene in space typically begins as a timeline sequence of comms calls between NPCs (some were planned to just be comms calls but were upgraded to full cinematic cutaways over time). In these scenes, the player will be able to experience the action in first-person using the ‘break-free’ feature should they want to.
Once the calls are complete, they team lay down the action elements. This allows them to space out the comms as needed and begin crucial nav-spline work. Control points, ship speed, spline tangents, roll, pitch, and yaw all need to be dialed in carefully.
For example, the splines could start with the player approaching several mercs to scan them. While laying this out, the team pay significant attention to the direction, color, and intensity of the sun (or where it will be in the final mission layout), as the wrong angle could mean the whole scene is ‘flat-lit’ and less interesting.
Another consideration is how costumes, ship loadouts, and cockpits could change, as some aren’t finished or feature meshwork being worked on later in the milestone. A balance needs to be struck in terms of what the designers want to do and what they can do on a first pass, as the spline skeleton needs to be dialed in first. Realistic pathing is vital here, particularly as the scene will be viewable from either first or third person and from a variety of angles.
The current milestone features a scene around a table at a noodle bar, which has challenges very different from animating kilometer-long nav-splines. For example, a character eating noodles with chopsticks means the team have to animate fingers, sticks, a box, and noodles (and possibly film themselves eating on their lunch break for reference). The scene’s state machine must be considered too, with animation idles and fragments in mind. They must also cater for players arriving at varying times due to potential side activities on the way to the scene.
Features (Gameplay)
The SQ42 Feature Team implemented new TrackView weapon functionality to allow the cinematic designers to control characters firing missiles. Technical investigation was completed too, which involved looking at performance and how TrackView could be updated across multiple cores. Currently, it’s single-threaded and automatically pre-caches animations to stop glitches when it’s waiting for an animation to load. SQ42 Features worked with the designers to fix problems with moving the missions to work with object container streaming and went through the requirements of mission-fail conditions. They also continued to help develop the firing range and get it fully working in-game.
Gameplay Story
The Gameplay Story Team completed a mo-cap session before the end of 2020, so they kicked off the year by moving the captures through the pipeline. They also finished a handful of polish tasks remaining for the Morrow Tour. Alongside this, they began updating and maintaining their scenes from chapter 4a, which is a wider development focus of Q1 2021. However, progress was also made on other game sections, including the first chapter. This involved preliminary work on the Correl walk-and-talk and adding placeholder audio to additional vignettes.
Graphics
The Graphics Team started the year finalizing several outstanding bugs and features that didn’t quite make the Q4 deadline. Once complete, focus moved to the Gen12 renderer, which received various improvements to features like depth-of-field. A major rewrite of the tessellation shaders was done to streamline the code and fix a number of bugs. The shadow pass conversion was also completed, with the team now looking to see if they can enable this codepath by default.
Level Design
The Social Design Team benefitted from their focus towards the end of 2020, using the tech and tools they upgraded to make great progress on scenes and narrative sections. The Level Design Team are currently working through all ground-based FPS environments, adding additional setup for the various player paths. The Space/Dogfight Team worked alongside AI to bring an enemy faction’s combat behaviors to the ‘gold standard.’
Narrative
The Narrative Team continued to work closely with the Design Team to review progress on various levels. This included calling out potential moments that might require additional dialogue or scenes to either explain gameplay intent or to make areas feel appropriately populated. They then worked with Audio to create placeholder assets utilizing text-to-speech and temporary recordings so they can be reviewed in situ. They also drafted initial ideas for the target range aboard the Idris, which covered everything from general training to game modes. Elsewhere, they supported other departments with environment documents, mission text, and script revisions.
QA
Cinematics continued to rely on QA for recordings of each level so they could ensure scenes worked correctly and are of the expected quality. They also supported the development teams with issues and tested various changes and updates across the project.
Tech Animation
The Technical Animation Team kicked off the year with Xi’an character body and facial rigs and are currently exploring the alien species’ language, body movement, and joint placements. Skinning tests are also underway to ensure the best foundation possible for the animation rigs. Time was also devoted to Vanduul combat behaviors, animation implementation, and head rigging for upcoming cinematics. This tied into rigging work currently underway for creatures found in the PU.
UI
The UI Team worked alongside Vehicles to implement the new Aegis UI HUD style in the Gladius. In parallel, the artists created an updated UI for RSI that will feature in several campaign ships. The UI programmers began the groundwork for an improved Starmap, interior map, and radar. This is a significant project and will take several months to complete but will greatly help with navigation around the game world.
VFX
VFX worked closely with Art and Design to flesh out the interior ‘cells’ of the Coil, with VFX Tech Art taking an active role in moving the location forwards. Progress was also made on chapter 4’s VFX requirements. WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
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- 17987
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- Series
- Monthly Reports
- Comments
- 10
- Published
- 5 years ago (2021-02-10T21:00:00+00:00)