Monthly Report: February 2014 - [Comm-Links](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links) - Monthly Report: February 2014 Monthly Report: February 2014 ============================= Undefined Undefined Monthly Reports [Previous](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/13609) [Next](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/13612) Content ------- English Greetings Citizens, At the start of this year there was some heated debate on the community forums about whether the team at Cloud Imperium was doing enough to keep the community informed. As with most of the debates on our forums there were some widely differing views; there wasn’t enough information on the game’s progress, there was too much, there was just enough. With a community as large as Star Citizen’s, you can’t please everyone all the time. :) I’m proud of our track record of keeping the community informed. We have eight to ten posts a week on the RSI website, we are currently delivering 3 videos a week (Ten for the Chairman, Wingman’s Hangar and the Next Great Starship). We have a whole forum subsection where the community can ask and get answers directly from the ever expanding development team. I don’t believe there is any other game, even one that is out of development and “live” that involves and informs the community to the extent we do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve! As I hope people have noticed, we’ve shifted the focus of our video content to have more behind the scenes material, and to answer harder questions than perhaps we did last year. Even though we’re proud of the amount of updates we share that doesn’t mean that we don’t listen to what is said and if it resonates, respond. One of the valid criticisms about our information flow is that its sheer quantity can be overwhelming and there isn’t any kind of high level summary for the people that don’t have the time to watch every video, read every post and monitor the forums for any data point they have missed. So in response to that I am introducing the very first CIG Star Citizen monthly report. The concept is simple – a high level monthly production progress report from the various teams from around the world working on Star Citizen. You may find it interesting to know that as of this moment there are 212 people working on Star Citizen between the internal and external studios and contractors! More people are working on this project than most AAA console titles, and it’s definitely the largest team to work on a Space Sim. These are jobs you have created! It’s an amazing accomplishment and it’s all down to your passion for space sims, PCs and doing something different! Not only that but these are 212 developers that want what you want – to make the best game possible – they don’t have to worry about a publisher pushing them to release early to plug a hole in a quarterly revenue plan or to incorporate a feature just because it’s the flavor of the month. It is because of this, and the new backers that continually join the community every month – you may be interested to know that 71% if the $6M or so we raised since December came from new backers – that I feel confident that we are making something that will be special. It won’t always be perfect, or on time, but given the talent of the team and the enthusiasm, feedback and support of the community I know we will reach the promised land of a living breathing universe that we can all adventure in together for many years to come. As I write this, the Star Citizen team is all around me hard at work on the Dogfighting Module. We plan to premiere dogfighting at a special Citizens-only event just prior to PAX East. If all goes as planned, the Dogfighting Module itself will launch shortly after PAX and you will finally get your hands on your flight sticks! The team is scurrying to take care of thousands upon thousands of necessary details: variable damage states, HUD detailing, weapons cameras, engine sounds and countless other things that go into creating an immersive space combat experience. At this point, we can now regularly dogfight here in the office. The biggest danger, or “blocker” in game development parlance, continues to be the server backend. You may recall that we pushed the release because we did not want to use the standard CryEngine server and net-code. Instead, we decided it would be more efficient to use the system which will form the nucleus of Star Citizen’s persistent servers in the future. We have high hopes that the solution will be ready in time for launch… and that that solution will stand up to the hundreds of thousands of Citizens waiting to battle it out. The very success that Star Citizen has had in building such a large community so early in its development is also one of its most challenging – launching the DFM will be akin to launching a major online game. Except we aren’t even close to being finished. It’s a high wire act of the most difficult proportions! — Chris Roberts Travis Day, Dogfight Producer Our Santa Monica office has accomplished a lot over the past month and we’re all very excited to share with the community about what we have been up to! We’re hitting the stage with the Dogfighting Module where everything is starting to come together into a product that we are proud of and we sincerely hope our fans will enjoy. Our team here is led by Chris Roberts and historically the Santa Monica office has been responsible for virtually all design and engineering for the Dogfighting Module. Over the past month we have brought on a lot of support from our brothers and sisters in arms across the company and all our of development partners. At this point there is not a single studio whether internal or external who is not involved in some critical piece of the Dogfighting Module and it is great working together with everyone towards a unified objective. To this end on the Production team we have spent a great deal of effort over the past month scheduling out all of the teams tasks, identifying which studios are best suited to contribute on certain features, and dividing up all the work according to our schedules and skillsets. We’ve also coordinated having many different team members (at one point 14 at once!) visiting here in LA to get training on some of the systems we’ve developed, get direction from Chris, and train us on systems they’ve created that we could use on Dogfighting. At the same time Production is continuing to work with several external partners (not counted on the game development headcount) on having them create some upcoming ship commercials which we look forward to sharing with you guys! On the Design side we’ve had Pete Mackay out visiting from Austin and working diligently on refining and balancing all of our ship systems and their interactions with the HUD/UI. There are really a lot of cool interactive systems on in these ships! It has been really important to make sure our HUD/UI for Dogfighting captures all these systems and displays them in an understandable fashion that allows players to have insight and control over what’s going on “under the hood”. To this end we’ve actually had visitors from the UK, Montreal, and Austin all working with the folks here to make sure we provide a HUD/UI that will really blow people away and showcase the fidelity level of our ships and their simulated systems. From a technical perspective our Engineers and Tech Design staff have been working on finishing off and bug fixing the vehicle damage system for our current ships. We’ve got it to the point where you can quite surgically pick a ship apart piece by piece and watch its various systems fail out before it ultimately explodes. The distinct visual pleasure of watching a ship blown to pieces has gone up a great deal recently too with Forrest Stephan and our new hire Casey Robinson working on generating some beautiful visual effects for the weapons, ship damage, and shields. You’ll get to see and hear a lot more about the vehicle damage systems soon! Last but certainly not least our Physics Programmer, John Pritchett, has been hard at work finalizing the ships new flight models and g-force system. The new flight model allows the IFCS (Intelligent Flight Control System) to handle the orientation and thrust of all the thrusters independently in order to achieve the desired vector and velocity changes provided by player input while staying within a safe g-force envelope to prevent unconsciousness. It also has several modes which will allow you six degrees of freedom control, automatic turn banking where the ship rolls to orientations which are most conducive to the pilot surviving the g-force load, and disabled where you can rapidly maneuver but will quickly cause yourself to blackout. As we move into the month of March we will be continuing to fine tune these systems while finishing a few more like the LOD (level of detail) system, continued work on the HUD/UI, additional spectacular visual effects, and continuing bug fixing. CIG Santa Monica currently includes 24 developers: Chris Roberts, 1 production specialist, 3 designers, 3 artists, 6 programmers and ten others (marketing, legal, community, customer support.) We all hope you’ve enjoyed reading about what we’ve been up to and if you have any questions please feel free to throw your questions into our “Ask a Developer” threads on the forums. Eric Peterson, Studio Director CIG Texas is hard at work on the server backend and providing support for other areas of the DFM. As it is all hands on deck for the big Dogfighting push, we have some of the team embedded in LA with the dogfighting team. However, work on the PU and Hangar has not stopped! Patch 11 added functionality to the Cutlass and the 11.1 patch added the promised Oculus Rift support. This isn’t just a cool feature: it’s also meeting one of our early stretch goal promises. The art team is going full bore with character modeling, block outs for helmets, fleshing out character rigs, doing the damage states and LODs for the Hornet and Scythe, finishing up the maneuvering thruster models, and keeping the style guides up to date for all the manufactures and outsource partners. Programming is primarily working on the backend server infrastructure for the DFM, as well as build system improvements, tools creation, PBR integration, and hangar bug fixes. Animation has been busy teaching all the new hires inside CIG how to properly animate for Star Citizen, as well as running the first full performance capture test shoot for SQ42, and doing animations and fixes for the ships for the DFM and in the hangar. Design this month has been working on material preparation for PBR, Data migration to Articy for Glactapedia, looking for design candidates, updates to the hangar like improving the firing range, as well as systems design for the PU. Audio is working on finalizing the interactive music design, working on various sound effects on ships in dogfighting from thrusters to weaponry etc, ramping up to record voice/facial mocap actors for NPC pilots and in cockpit computers, and continuing to work on SFX for planetside environments. In addition I am happy to report that we have begun the integration of PBR or Physically Based Rendering (PBR). We still need to update many of our materials, but thanks to CryTek and their latest code drop, we can make this happen in a much smoother fashion. Upcoming Hangar patches will start to enable PBR, and we will convert ships and other content to the PBR system as they are needed for Dogfighting. For a great look at the state of PBR, check out our recent video on the Scythe transition. Our team currently consists of 45 people: 5 designers, 14 artists, 11 programmers, 3 audio experts, 4 QA/IT specialists and 8 production team members! Erin Roberts, Studio Director Here in Manchester, we’ve hit the ground running: at the end of last year we were tasked with the responsibility of building Squadron 42’s first missions, a sort of test to get our designers and programmers up to speed with the CryEngine. I’m pleased to report that the team is really taking to the system, as evidenced by the asteroid base and mining system we recently revealed as the backdrop for the game’s first series! In fact, the overall Star Citizen design team thought so much of the spider-shaped industrial mining tools, shown recently on Wingman’s Hangar,that we’re now working to integrate them into the persistent universe’s mining system. Elsewhere, Foundry 42 continues to staff up; meanwhile designers are building missions, programmers are expanding the CryEngine and artists are building ships… with an obvious special attention towards military craft. These include the Gladiator and Retaliator, which we have just taken responsibility for. But don’t be surprised if the next massive capital ship you see was also built in Manchester. Be sure and watch our recent Foundry 42 update video to check out some of our work in action! We are also helping with the drive on getting the dogfighting module out to everyone. Design is pushing hard on finalizing the gameplay rules and experience in our playable maps. The artists are really pushing on the visual quality working on in our playable maps. The artists are really pushing on the visual quality really trying to show case Cryengine at its best, and the coders are working on supporting the implementation of a few remaining systems we are trying to cram into dog fighting. The Squadron 42 team at Foundry 42 currently includes 34 members: 11 artists, 11 designers, 7 programmers, a creative director, 3 managers and myself. Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer Here in cold Montreal, Canada, we are keeping warm by working hard on the Mobiglas, the Avatar Customisation, the Economy System and Planetside, We have just finished the first pass on implementing a basic framework for all UI related functionality. This framework will help all studios for any UI development. At the moment we are using this framework to integrate the Augmented Reality functionality on the Mobiglas 1 and to build the Avatar Customisation System. For Planetside, both the exterior and interior of Arc Corp are taking shape. We have also started laying out the other planets from the Stanton system 2, as well as concepts for new solar systems. Arc Corp is really important to us and is taking some time to develop since we want it to set the visual quality for all other planets. On the economy system 3, all the technology is in place. We have a server that talks with the game client and we are now starting to build the control room where we’ll be able to play with the variables of the economy. Finally, we are also working closely with Austin on the Asteroid Hangar. For all hangars, we are developing a room system. This will allow you to add rooms to your hangar, such as the firing range. All this great work is being made by a team of 32 developers: 9 engineers, 10 3D artists, 5 concept artists, 6 designers and 2 project manager. See you soon on Arc Corp. CGBot – Sergio Rosas, Founder CGBot has been hard at work down here in sunny Monterrey, Mexico. We are currently working on space suits for the explorer class, getting the Idris ready for Squadron 42, getting materials updated for the big PBR push, and damage states for the Aurora. CGBot currently employs 18 artists on Star Citizen. Sorry Canada – we are not sure what you mean by winter. Sean Murphy, Outsource Manager Some of the most in demand sci-fi artists from film and television are doing work for us on Star Citizen, people like Ryan Church (Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars), Jim Martin (Star Trek, AI, The Matrix Reloaded), Geoffrey Mandel (Serenity/Firefly), and Justin Sweet (Avengers). Overall, we have 15 freelance artists working around the world on alien race look and feel, designs for both human and alien space ships, as well as graphical logos for corporations in the game both human and alien. [Redacted] The FPS team are hard at work building the first person experience. This month our focus has been on extending and overhauling the movement system to accommodate zero gravity and Star Citizen’s intensely immersive animation driven movement. From the way bodies move in weightlessness to the way eyes track the things we’re looking at, everything is getting a hyper-technical going over and rebuild to ensure the vision of the game gets the support it deserves. Of course, while our designers and engineers work out the best ways to fight on foot and in space, the art team has been hard at work building one of the many locations players will be able to visit in the game, in this case an abandoned space station that has since been taken over by pirates! The build out uses the “tier system” we’ve created to make rapid production of the game’s massive locations possible, all without sacrificing visual quality. The tier system is a modular building and design system where structures and locations are broken down into elements that can snap together in myriad different configurations, each possibility designed to be just as visually appealing as the others. This way, we can produce numerous locations that use common assets and architecture to ensure the same visual and emotional feel of common locations (such as stations built by the same company) and seamless transitions from one set of modules to another, all while maximizing variety without sacrificing quality. We can’t wait to show it off to the world! This work is being made possible by 21 staff: eight artists, five programmers, four animators, a level designer, a creative director, a producer and one sound effects contractor. Mark Day, Studio Director Here are some highlights from our task list for February: Art Interior concept art for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Interior concept art for Hardpoint Guys completed (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Exterior geometry for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Interior geometry for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Exterior geometry for Monorail station completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Third revision of Monorail station geometry & texturing complete (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). 2nd pass on Centermass “ Beautiful Corner “. Preparation for the conversion to PBR. Design Initial pass of AI paths completed using Kythera system (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Lift system animations completed (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Hornet land and take offs functioning using Kythera system (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). While the above tasks reflect the activities for the month… they don’t reflect the effort. We are not just making your average “next-gen“space game. We are constantly reminded that providing work that would easily meet expectations on titles like Star Wars The Old Republic or Mass Effect doesn’t reach the high-quality demands of Chris Roberts, Mark Skelton and Chris Olivia. The feedback and art direction we receive is both challenging and extremely satisfying when we see the end results. Pushing to achieve Chris’ vision for planet-side locations like Terra has us putting in lots of extra hours… but doing some of the best work of our careers. Terra is being made real by a team of six: four artists, a level designer and a production manager. We’re actively looking for additional environmental artists in the San Francisco Bay area! Benoit Beauséjour, Founder On the web platform side, February was the launch of the new revamped comments thread system as well the re-introduction of a poll module to the forums. Poll away! Many mobile optimizations have been put in place to ease browsing the site on mobile phones and tablets, this is an effort we have to continue. We have done great progress on the design and development of Multi-Factor authentication which we hope to bring to production soon! Obviously and as always, many bugs were fixed and deployed in more than 6 code update. A considerable amount of time has been spent in connecting website ship data to the game in order to deliver up to date statistics on the site for all know ship models and variants. This work is factored into a major overhaul of the Ship Specs page where we will present a new way to browse ships, specs and other relevant stats (and more!) directly on the site and store pages. The Organizations system saw a great deal of design decisions and progress made on the features Drop Two. The development of the Chart viewer and the division/jobs manager taking the bulk of the design & development time. We have taken the decision to split the Drop Two into a smaller Drop (1.5?) in order to get multiple organizations membership deployed faster. The Chat system is also undergoing some under-the-hood changes to support the expanding (fast!) list of Organizations. Turbulent’s Star Citizen team consists of eight people: a producer, manager, artist, UE expert and two each front and back-end developers. As the community continues to grow, the team has to spend time in expanding the infrastructure to properly host the different services that the RSI platform is using. A major server upgrade has begun in February (and is still underway) to update the current server infrastructure to use more powerful and cheaper systems. Sorry Mexico, No Olympic medals for you! CIG Employee Count CIG Los Angeles 24 CIG Austin 45 Foundry 42 34 Total 103 Outsource Employee Count BHVR 32 FPS 21 Void Alpha 6 Turbulent 8 CGBot 18 Other 9 Freelance 15 Total 109 Grand Total 212 Grüße Bürger, Zu Beginn dieses Jahres gab es eine hitzige Debatte in den Community-Foren darüber, ob das Team von Cloud Imperium genug tat, um die Community auf dem Laufenden zu halten. Wie bei den meisten Debatten in unseren Foren gab es sehr unterschiedliche Ansichten; es gab nicht genügend Informationen über den Fortschritt des Spiels, es gab zu viel, es gab gerade genug. Mit einer so großen Community wie Star Citizen's kann man nicht immer allen gefallen. :) Ich bin stolz auf unsere Erfolgsgeschichte, die Community auf dem Laufenden zu halten. Wir haben acht bis zehn Beiträge pro Woche auf der RSI-Website, wir liefern derzeit drei Videos pro Woche (zehn für den Vorsitzenden, Wingman's Hangar und das nächste große Raumschiff). Wir haben einen ganzen Forumsbereich, in dem die Community direkt vom ständig wachsenden Entwicklungsteam fragen und Antworten erhalten kann. Ich glaube nicht, dass es ein anderes Spiel gibt, auch nicht eines, das aus der Entwicklung ist und "lebt", das die Gemeinschaft in dem Maße einbezieht und informiert, wie wir es tun. Aber das bedeutet nicht, dass wir uns nicht verbessern können! Wie ich hoffe, haben die Leute bemerkt, dass wir den Fokus unserer Videoinhalte verlagert haben, um mehr Material hinter den Kulissen zu haben und härtere Fragen zu beantworten als vielleicht im letzten Jahr. Auch wenn wir stolz auf die Anzahl der Updates sind, die wir teilen, bedeutet das nicht, dass wir nicht zuhören, was gesagt wird, und wenn es ankommt, antworten Sie. Eine der gültigen Kritikpunkte an unserem Informationsfluss ist, dass seine schiere Menge überwältigend sein kann und es keine Art von hochrangiger Zusammenfassung für die Leute gibt, die nicht die Zeit haben, sich jedes Video anzusehen, jeden Beitrag zu lesen und die Foren auf jeden Datenpunkt zu überwachen, den sie verpasst haben. Deshalb stelle ich Ihnen den allerersten Monatsbericht des CIG Star Citizen vor. Das Konzept ist einfach - ein monatlicher Produktionsfortschrittsbericht auf hohem Niveau von den verschiedenen Teams aus der ganzen Welt, die an Star Citizen arbeiten. Sie werden es interessant finden zu wissen, dass derzeit 212 Personen zwischen den internen und externen Studios und Auftragnehmern an Star Citizen arbeiten! Mehr Leute arbeiten an diesem Projekt als die meisten AAA-Konsolen-Titel, und es ist definitiv das größte Team, das an einer Space Sim arbeitet. Das sind Jobs, die du geschaffen hast! Es ist eine erstaunliche Leistung und es liegt an deiner Leidenschaft für Weltraumsimulationen, PCs und etwas anderes! Nicht nur das, aber das sind 212 Entwickler, die wollen, was Sie wollen - um das bestmögliche Spiel zu machen - sie müssen sich keine Sorgen um einen Publisher machen, der sie dazu drängt, frühzeitig zu veröffentlichen, um ein Loch in einem vierteljährlichen Umsatzplan zu stopfen oder ein Feature einzubauen, nur weil es der Geschmack des Monats ist. Aus diesem Grund und wegen der neuen Geldgeber, die jeden Monat der Community beitreten - Sie werden vielleicht interessiert sein zu wissen, dass 71%, wenn die 6 Mio. $ oder so, die wir seit Dezember gesammelt haben, von neuen Geldgebern stammen -, bin ich zuversichtlich, dass wir etwas Besonderes machen. Es wird nicht immer perfekt oder pünktlich sein, aber angesichts des Talents des Teams und der Begeisterung, des Feedbacks und der Unterstützung der Gemeinschaft weiß ich, dass wir das versprochene Land eines lebenden atmenden Universums erreichen werden, in dem wir alle noch viele Jahre gemeinsam Abenteuer erleben können. Während ich dies schreibe, ist das Star Citizen Team um mich herum fleißig bei der Arbeit am Dogfighting Module. Wir planen, den Luftkampf bei einer speziellen Veranstaltung nur für Bürger kurz vor der PAX East zum ersten Mal zu veranstalten. Wenn alles wie geplant läuft, wird das Dogfighting Module selbst kurz nach PAX starten und Sie werden endlich Ihre Flugsticks in die Finger bekommen! Das Team beeilt sich, sich um Tausende und Abertausende von notwendigen Details zu kümmern: variable Schadenszustände, HUD-Details, Waffenkameras, Triebwerksgeräusche und unzählige andere Dinge, die dazu beitragen, ein immersives Raumkampferlebnis zu schaffen. An dieser Stelle können wir jetzt regelmäßig Luftkämpfe hier im Büro führen. Die größte Gefahr, oder "Blocker" in der Spieleentwicklung, ist nach wie vor das Server-Backend. Sie erinnern sich vielleicht daran, dass wir das Release verschoben haben, weil wir nicht den Standard-CryEngine-Server und den Netscode verwenden wollten. Stattdessen haben wir uns entschieden, dass es effizienter wäre, das System zu nutzen, das in Zukunft den Kern der persistenten Server von Star Citizen bilden wird. Wir hoffen sehr, dass die Lösung rechtzeitig zum Start fertig sein wird.... und dass diese Lösung den Hunderttausenden von Bürgern standhalten wird, die darauf warten, sie zu bekämpfen. Der Erfolg, den Star Citizen beim Aufbau einer so großen Community so früh in seiner Entwicklung hatte, ist auch eine der größten Herausforderungen - die Einführung des DFM wird wie die Einführung eines großen Online-Spiels aussehen. Nur, dass wir nicht mal kurz davor sind, fertig zu werden. Es ist ein Hochseilakt der schwierigsten Proportionen! - Chris Roberts Travis Day, Dogfight Producer, Dogfight Producer Unser Büro in Santa Monica hat in den letzten Monaten viel erreicht, und wir alle freuen uns sehr, mit der Community darüber zu sprechen, was wir vorhaben! Wir kommen mit dem Dogfighting Module auf die Bühne, wo alles beginnt, zu einem Produkt zu verschmelzen, auf das wir stolz sind, und wir hoffen sehr, dass es unseren Fans gefallen wird. Unser Team hier wird von Chris Roberts geleitet und in der Vergangenheit war das Büro in Santa Monica für praktisch alle Design- und Ingenieurarbeiten für das Dogfighting Module verantwortlich. In den letzten Monaten haben wir viel Unterstützung von unseren Waffenbrüdern im gesamten Unternehmen und allen unseren Entwicklungspartnern erhalten. An diesem Punkt gibt es kein einziges Studio, weder intern noch extern, das nicht an einem kritischen Teil des Dogfighting Module beteiligt ist, und es ist großartig, mit allen zusammenzuarbeiten, um ein einheitliches Ziel zu erreichen. Zu diesem Zweck haben wir im Produktionsteam im vergangenen Monat sehr viel Zeit investiert, um alle Aufgaben des Teams zu planen, herauszufinden, welche Studios am besten geeignet sind, um an bestimmten Funktionen mitzuwirken, und die gesamte Arbeit nach unseren Zeitplänen und Fähigkeiten aufzuteilen. Wir haben auch koordiniert, dass viele verschiedene Teammitglieder (zu einem Zeitpunkt 14 auf einmal!) hier in LA zu Besuch sind, um Schulungen zu einigen der von uns entwickelten Systeme zu erhalten, von Chris Anweisungen zu erhalten und uns auf den von ihnen entwickelten Systemen zu trainieren, die wir für den Nahkampf verwenden könnten. Gleichzeitig arbeitet Production weiterhin mit mehreren externen Partnern zusammen (ohne auf die Mitarbeiterzahl bei der Spieleentwicklung zu zählen), um einige kommende Schiffswerbespots zu erstellen, die wir gerne mit euch teilen werden! Auf der Design-Seite hatten wir Pete Mackay aus Austin zu Besuch und arbeiten fleißig an der Verfeinerung und dem Ausgleich aller unserer Schiffssysteme und deren Interaktionen mit dem HUD/UI. Es gibt wirklich viele coole interaktive Systeme auf diesen Schiffen! Es war sehr wichtig sicherzustellen, dass unser HUD/UI for Dogfighting alle diese Systeme erfasst und in einer verständlichen Weise darstellt, die es den Spielern ermöglicht, Einblicke und Kontrolle über das Geschehen "unter der Haube" zu haben. Zu diesem Zweck hatten wir eigentlich Besucher aus Großbritannien, Montreal und Austin, die alle mit den Leuten hier zusammenarbeiteten, um sicherzustellen, dass wir ein HUD/UI zur Verfügung stellen, das die Leute wirklich in den Wahnsinn treibt und den Treuezustand unserer Schiffe und ihrer simulierten Systeme zeigt. Aus technischer Sicht haben unsere Ingenieure und Tech Design Mitarbeiter an der Fertigstellung und Fehlerbehebung des Fahrzeugschadensystems für unsere aktuellen Schiffe gearbeitet. Wir haben es so weit gebracht, dass man ein Schiff Stück für Stück operativ auseinandernehmen und zusehen kann, wie seine verschiedenen Systeme ausfallen, bevor es schließlich explodiert. Das ausgeprägte visuelle Vergnügen, ein in Stücke gesprengtes Schiff zu sehen, ist in letzter Zeit auch sehr gestiegen, wobei Forrest Stephan und unser neuer Mitarbeiter Casey Robinson daran arbeiten, einige schöne visuelle Effekte für die Waffen, Schiffsschäden und Schilde zu erzeugen. Sie werden bald viel mehr über die Fahrzeugschadensysteme sehen und hören! Last but not least hat unser Physik-Programmierer John Pritchett hart daran gearbeitet, die neuen Flugmodelle und das g-force-System des Schiffes fertigzustellen. Das neue Flugmodell ermöglicht es dem IFCS (Intelligent Flight Control System), die Ausrichtung und den Schub aller Triebwerke unabhängig voneinander zu steuern, um die gewünschten Vektor- und Geschwindigkeitsänderungen durch die Spielereingabe zu erreichen, während er sich in einem sicheren g-Kraftbereich befindet, um Bewusstlosigkeit zu verhindern. Es hat auch mehrere Modi, die Ihnen sechs Freiheitsgrade ermöglichen, automatisches Abbiegen, bei dem das Schiff zu Orientierungen rollt, die für den Piloten, der die g-Kraftlast überlebt, am günstigsten sind, und deaktiviert, bei denen Sie schnell manövrieren können, sich aber schnell zum Blackout veranlassen. Im März werden wir die Feinabstimmung dieser Systeme fortsetzen und gleichzeitig einige weitere wie das LOD-System (Level of Detail), die weitere Arbeit an der HUD/UI, zusätzliche spektakuläre visuelle Effekte und die weitere Fehlerbehebung abschließen. CIG Santa Monica umfasst derzeit 24 Entwickler: Chris Roberts, 1 Produktionsspezialist, 3 Designer, 3 Künstler, 6 Programmierer und zehn weitere (Marketing, Recht, Community, Kundensupport.) Wir hoffen alle, dass es Ihnen gefallen hat, darüber zu lesen, was wir gemacht haben, und wenn Sie Fragen haben, können Sie Ihre Fragen gerne in unsere "Ask a Developer"-Threads in den Foren stellen. Eric Peterson, Studio-Direktor CIG Texas arbeitet hart am Server-Backend und bietet Unterstützung für andere Bereiche des DFM. Da alle Hände an Deck für den großen Dogfighting-Push sind, haben wir einen Teil des Teams in LA mit dem Dogfighting-Team integriert. Die Arbeit an der PU und dem Hangar hat jedoch nicht aufgehört! Patch 11 hat dem Entermesser Funktionalität hinzugefügt und der 11.1 Patch hat die versprochene Oculus Rift Unterstützung hinzugefügt. Das ist nicht nur ein cooles Feature, sondern es erfüllt auch eines unserer frühen Stretch-Zielversprechen. Das Kunstteam geht mit Charaktermodellierung, Block-Outs für Helme, ausgefeilten Charakter-Rigs, Schadenszuständen und LODs für die Hornet und Scythe, der Fertigstellung der Manövertriebwerksmodelle und der Aktualisierung der Style Guides für alle Hersteller und Outsourcing-Partner voll auf Kurs. Die Programmierung arbeitet hauptsächlich an der Backend-Server-Infrastruktur für das DFM, sowie an Systemverbesserungen, der Erstellung von Tools, der PBR-Integration und der Behebung von Hangarfehlern. Animation war damit beschäftigt, allen neuen Mitarbeitern in der CIG beizubringen, wie man richtig für Star Citizen animiert, den ersten vollständigen Performance Capture-Testshooting für SQ42 durchzuführen und Animationen und Korrekturen für die Schiffe für das DFM und den Hangar durchzuführen. Design in diesem Monat hat an der Materialvorbereitung für PBR, der Datenmigration zu Articy for Glactapedia, der Suche nach Designkandidaten, Aktualisierungen des Hangars wie der Verbesserung des Schießplatzes sowie dem Systemdesign für das PU gearbeitet. Audio arbeitet an der Fertigstellung des interaktiven Musikdesigns, arbeitet an verschiedenen Soundeffekten auf Schiffen im Luftkampf von Triebwerken bis hin zu Waffen usw., nimmt Sprach-/Gesichtsmokkappendarsteller für NSC-Piloten und in Cockpit-Computern auf und arbeitet weiterhin an SFX für planetarische Umgebungen. Darüber hinaus freue ich mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu können, dass wir mit der Integration von PBR oder Physically Based Rendering (PBR) begonnen haben. Wir müssen noch viele unserer Materialien aktualisieren, aber dank CryTek und dem neuesten Code Drop können wir dies viel reibungsloser realisieren. Zukünftige Hangar-Patches werden beginnen, PBR zu ermöglichen, und wir werden Schiffe und andere Inhalte in das PBR-System konvertieren, wenn sie für den Nahkampf benötigt werden. Für einen großartigen Blick auf den Zustand der PBR schauen Sie sich unser aktuelles Video über den Scythe Übergang an. Unser Team besteht derzeit aus 45 Personen: 5 Designer, 14 Künstler, 11 Programmierer, 3 Audioexperten, 4 QA/IT-Spezialisten und 8 Produktionsmitarbeiter! Erin Roberts, Studioleiterin Hier in Manchester haben wir den ersten Schritt getan: Ende letzten Jahres wurden wir mit dem Bau der ersten Missionen von Squadron 42 beauftragt, eine Art Test, um unsere Designer und Programmierer mit der CryEngine auf den neuesten Stand zu bringen. Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu können, dass das Team wirklich auf das System zugreift, wie das Asteroidenbasis- und Mining-System zeigt, das wir kürzlich als Hintergrund für die erste Serie des Spiels enthüllt haben! Tatsächlich dachte das gesamte Star Citizen-Designteam so sehr an die spinnenförmigen industriellen Mining-Werkzeuge, die kürzlich im Hangar von Wingman gezeigt wurden, dass wir nun daran arbeiten, sie in das Mining-System des persistenten Universums zu integrieren. Andernorts ist die Gießerei 42 weiterhin mit Personal besetzt; inzwischen bauen Designer Missionen, Programmierer erweitern die CryEngine und Künstler bauen Schiffe.... mit einer offensichtlich besonderen Aufmerksamkeit für Militärfahrzeuge. Dazu gehören der Gladiator und der Vergelter, für den wir gerade die Verantwortung übernommen haben. Aber wundern Sie sich nicht, wenn das nächste riesige Großschiff, das Sie sehen, auch in Manchester gebaut wurde. Schauen Sie sich auf jeden Fall unser aktuelles Foundry 42-Update-Video an, um einige unserer Arbeiten in Aktion zu sehen! Wir helfen auch bei der Umsetzung des Dogfighting-Moduls für alle. Design setzt alles daran, die Spielregeln und Erfahrungen mit unseren spielbaren Karten zu finalisieren. Die Künstler treiben die visuelle Qualität der Arbeit in unseren spielbaren Karten wirklich voran. Die Künstler drängen wirklich auf die visuelle Qualität, die wirklich versucht, den Fall Cryengine von seiner besten Seite zu zeigen, und die Programmierer arbeiten daran, die Implementierung einiger verbleibender Systeme zu unterstützen, die wir in die Hundebekämpfung einbinden wollen. Das Team von Squadron 42 bei Foundry 42 umfasst derzeit 34 Mitglieder: 11 Künstler, 11 Designer, 7 Programmierer, ein Creative Director, 3 Manager und ich selbst. Mathieu Beaulieu, Produzentin Hier im kalten Montreal, Kanada, halten wir uns warm, indem wir hart an Mobiglas, Avatar Customisation, Economy System und Planetside arbeiten, Wir haben gerade den ersten Durchlauf zur Implementierung eines grundlegenden Frameworks für alle UI-bezogenen Funktionen abgeschlossen. Dieses Framework wird allen Studios bei der Entwicklung von Benutzeroberflächen helfen. Im Moment nutzen wir dieses Framework, um die Augmented Reality-Funktionalität auf dem Mobiglas 1 zu integrieren und das Avatar Customisation System aufzubauen. Für Planetside nehmen sowohl das Äußere als auch das Innere von Arc Corp. Gestalt an. Wir haben auch damit begonnen, die anderen Planeten aus dem Stanton-System 2 sowie Konzepte für neue Solarsysteme zu entwickeln. Arc Corp ist für uns sehr wichtig und braucht einige Zeit, um sich zu entwickeln, da wir wollen, dass es die visuelle Qualität für alle anderen Planeten bestimmt. Im Economy-System 3 ist die gesamte Technologie vorhanden. Wir haben einen Server, der mit dem Spielclient spricht, und wir beginnen jetzt mit dem Bau des Kontrollraums, in dem wir mit den Variablen der Wirtschaft spielen können. Schließlich arbeiten wir auch eng mit Austin am Asteroidenhangar zusammen. Für alle Hangars entwickeln wir ein Raumsystem. Auf diese Weise können Sie Ihrem Hangar Räume hinzufügen, wie beispielsweise den Schießstand. All diese großartige Arbeit wird von einem Team von 32 Entwicklern geleistet: 9 Ingenieure, 10 3D-Künstler, 5 Konzeptkünstler, 6 Designer und 2 Projektleiter. Bis bald bei Arc Corp. CGBot - Sergio Rosas, Gründer der Firma CGBot hat hier unten im sonnigen Monterrey, Mexiko, hart gearbeitet. Wir arbeiten derzeit an Raumanzügen für die Entdeckerklasse, bereiten die Idris für die Staffel 42 vor, aktualisieren Materialien für den großen PBR-Push und Schadenszustände für die Aurora. CGBot beschäftigt derzeit 18 Künstler auf Star Citizen. Entschuldigung Kanada - wir sind uns nicht sicher, was Sie mit Winter meinen. Sean Murphy, Outsourcing Manager Einige der gefragtesten Sci-Fi-Künstler aus Film und Fernsehen arbeiten für uns an Star Citizen, Leute wie Ryan Church (Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars), Jim Martin (Star Trek, AI, The Matrix Reloaded), Geoffrey Mandel (Serenity/Firefly) und Justin Sweet (Avengers). Insgesamt haben wir 15 freiberufliche Künstler, die weltweit an Alien Race Look and Feel, Designs für menschliche und außerirdische Raumschiffe sowie grafische Logos für Unternehmen im Spiel Mensch und Außerirdische arbeiten. (Redigiert) Das FPS-Team arbeitet hart daran, die Erfahrung der ersten Person zu machen. In diesem Monat lag unser Schwerpunkt auf der Erweiterung und Überarbeitung des Bewegungssystems, um die Schwerelosigkeit und die intensiv immersive, animationsgetriebene Bewegung von Star Citizen zu berücksichtigen. Von der Art und Weise, wie sich Körper in der Schwerelosigkeit bewegen, bis hin zur Art und Weise, wie Augen die Dinge verfolgen, die wir betrachten, wird alles hypertechnisch überarbeitet und neu aufgebaut, um sicherzustellen, dass die Vision des Spiels die Unterstützung erhält, die es verdient. Natürlich, während unsere Designer und Ingenieure die besten Wege ausarbeiten, um zu Fuß und im Weltraum zu kämpfen, hat das Kunstteam hart daran gearbeitet, einen der vielen Orte aufzubauen, die Spieler im Spiel besuchen können, in diesem Fall eine verlassene Raumstation, die inzwischen von Piraten übernommen wurde! Der Build Out verwendet das von uns entwickelte "Tier-System", um eine schnelle Produktion der massiven Standorte des Spiels zu ermöglichen, ohne die visuelle Qualität zu beeinträchtigen. Das Tier-System ist ein modulares Bau- und Designsystem, bei dem Strukturen und Standorte in Elemente zerlegt werden, die in unzähligen verschiedenen Konfigurationen zusammengefügt werden können, wobei jede Möglichkeit so gestaltet ist, dass sie genauso optisch ansprechend ist wie die anderen. Auf diese Weise können wir zahlreiche Standorte produzieren, die gemeinsame Assets und Architekturen nutzen, um das gleiche visuelle und emotionale Gefühl von gemeinsamen Standorten (z.B. Stationen, die von demselben Unternehmen gebaut wurden) und nahtlose Übergänge von einer Reihe von Modulen zur anderen zu gewährleisten, bei gleichzeitiger Maximierung der Vielfalt ohne Qualitätseinbußen. Wir können es kaum erwarten, es der Welt zu zeigen! Diese Arbeit wird von 21 Mitarbeitern ermöglicht: acht Künstlern, fünf Programmierern, vier Animateuren, einem Leveldesigner, einem Creative Director, einem Produzenten und einem Sound Effects Auftragnehmer. Mark Day, Studioleiterin Hier sind einige Highlights aus unserer Aufgabenliste für Februar: Kunst Innenarchitektur für Knochen abgeschlossen (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Innenarchitektur für Hardpoint Guys abgeschlossen (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Außengeometrie für Knochen abgeschlossen (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Innengeometrie für Knochen abgeschlossen (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Außengeometrie für Monorail-Station fertiggestellt (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Dritte Überarbeitung der Monorail-Station Geometrie & Texturierung abgeschlossen (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). 2. Durchgang auf Centermass " Schöne Ecke ". Vorbereitung der Umstellung auf PBR. Design Erster Durchlauf von KI-Pfaden, die mit dem Kythera-System (Landing Zone, Terra Prime) abgeschlossen wurden. Animation des Aufzugssystems abgeschlossen (Landezone, Terra Prime). Hornet landen und starten mit dem Kythera-System (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Während die oben genannten Aufgaben die Aktivitäten für den Monat widerspiegeln.... spiegeln sie nicht den Aufwand wider. Wir machen nicht nur Ihr durchschnittliches "Next-Generation"-Raumspiel. Wir werden ständig daran erinnert, dass die Arbeit, die die Erwartungen an Titel wie Star Wars The Old Republic oder Mass Effect leicht erfüllen würde, nicht die hohen Qualitätsansprüche von Chris Roberts, Mark Skelton und Chris Olivia erfüllt. Das Feedback und die Art Direction, die wir erhalten, ist sowohl herausfordernd als auch äußerst zufriedenstellend, wenn wir die Endergebnisse sehen. Das Drängen, Chris' Vision für planetarische Standorte wie Terra zu verwirklichen, hat uns dazu veranlasst, viele Überstunden zu leisten.... aber einige der besten Arbeiten unserer Karriere zu leisten. Terra wird von einem sechsköpfigen Team realisiert: vier Künstlern, einem Level-Designer und einem Produktionsleiter. Wir sind aktiv auf der Suche nach weiteren Umweltkünstlern in der Region San Francisco Bay! Benoit Beauséjour, Gründer und Gründer Auf der Seite der Webplattform war der Februar der Start des neu überarbeiteten Kommentar-Threadsystems sowie die Wiedereinführung eines Umfragemoduls in den Foren. Poll-off! Viele mobile Optimierungen wurden vorgenommen, um das Surfen auf Handys und Tablets zu erleichtern, das ist eine Anstrengung, die wir fortsetzen müssen. Wir haben große Fortschritte bei der Entwicklung der Multi-Factor-Authentifizierung gemacht, die wir hoffentlich bald in die Produktion bringen werden! Offensichtlich und wie immer wurden viele Fehler behoben und in mehr als 6 Code Updates implementiert. Es wurde viel Zeit damit verbracht, die Schiffsdaten der Website mit dem Spiel zu verbinden, um aktuelle Statistiken auf der Website für alle bekannten Schiffsmodelle und -varianten zu liefern. Diese Arbeit wird in eine umfassende Überarbeitung der Ship Specs-Seite einfließen, wo wir eine neue Möglichkeit vorstellen werden, Schiffe, Spezifikationen und andere relevante Statistiken (und mehr!) direkt auf der Website und den Shop-Seiten zu durchsuchen. Das System des Unternehmens sah viele Designentscheidungen und Fortschritte bei den Features Drop Two. Die Entwicklung des Chart Viewers und des Division/Job Managers, die den Großteil der Design- und Entwicklungszeit in Anspruch nehmen. Wir haben beschlossen, den Drop Two in einen kleineren Drop (1,5?) aufzuteilen, um die Mitgliedschaft mehrerer Organisationen schneller einzusetzen. Das Chat-System wird auch unter der Kapuze verändert, um die wachsende (schnelle!) Liste der Organisationen zu unterstützen. Das Star Citizen-Team von Turbulent besteht aus acht Personen: einem Produzenten, Manager, Künstler, UE-Experten und je zwei Front- und Backend-Entwicklern. Da die Community weiter wächst, muss das Team Zeit damit verbringen, die Infrastruktur zu erweitern, um die verschiedenen Dienste, die die RSI-Plattform nutzt, ordnungsgemäß zu hosten. Im Februar hat ein größeres Server-Upgrade begonnen (und wird noch durchgeführt), um die aktuelle Server-Infrastruktur auf leistungsfähigere und kostengünstigere Systeme umzustellen. Tut mir leid, Mexiko, keine olympischen Medaillen für dich! CIG Mitarbeiterzahl CIG Los Angeles 24 CIG Austin 45 Foundry 42 34 Total 103 Outsource Mitarbeiterzahl BHVR 32 FPS 21 Void Alpha 6 Turbulent 8 CGBot 18 Other 9 Freelance 15 Total 109 Grand Total 212 Greetings Citizens, At the start of this year there was some heated debate on the community forums about whether the team at Cloud Imperium was doing enough to keep the community informed. As with most of the debates on our forums there were some widely differing views; there wasn’t enough information on the game’s progress, there was too much, there was just enough. With a community as large as Star Citizen’s, you can’t please everyone all the time. :) I’m proud of our track record of keeping the community informed. We have eight to ten posts a week on the RSI website, we are currently delivering 3 videos a week (Ten for the Chairman, Wingman’s Hangar and the Next Great Starship). We have a whole forum subsection where the community can ask and get answers directly from the ever expanding development team. I don’t believe there is any other game, even one that is out of development and “live” that involves and informs the community to the extent we do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve! As I hope people have noticed, we’ve shifted the focus of our video content to have more behind the scenes material, and to answer harder questions than perhaps we did last year. Even though we’re proud of the amount of updates we share that doesn’t mean that we don’t listen to what is said and if it resonates, respond. One of the valid criticisms about our information flow is that its sheer quantity can be overwhelming and there isn’t any kind of high level summary for the people that don’t have the time to watch every video, read every post and monitor the forums for any data point they have missed. So in response to that I am introducing the very first CIG Star Citizen monthly report. The concept is simple – a high level monthly production progress report from the various teams from around the world working on Star Citizen. You may find it interesting to know that as of this moment there are 212 people working on Star Citizen between the internal and external studios and contractors! More people are working on this project than most AAA console titles, and it’s definitely the largest team to work on a Space Sim. These are jobs you have created! It’s an amazing accomplishment and it’s all down to your passion for space sims, PCs and doing something different! Not only that but these are 212 developers that want what you want – to make the best game possible – they don’t have to worry about a publisher pushing them to release early to plug a hole in a quarterly revenue plan or to incorporate a feature just because it’s the flavor of the month. It is because of this, and the new backers that continually join the community every month – you may be interested to know that 71% if the $6M or so we raised since December came from new backers – that I feel confident that we are making something that will be special. It won’t always be perfect, or on time, but given the talent of the team and the enthusiasm, feedback and support of the community I know we will reach the promised land of a living breathing universe that we can all adventure in together for many years to come. As I write this, the Star Citizen team is all around me hard at work on the Dogfighting Module. We plan to premiere dogfighting at a special Citizens-only event just prior to PAX East. If all goes as planned, the Dogfighting Module itself will launch shortly after PAX and you will finally get your hands on your flight sticks! The team is scurrying to take care of thousands upon thousands of necessary details: variable damage states, HUD detailing, weapons cameras, engine sounds and countless other things that go into creating an immersive space combat experience. At this point, we can now regularly dogfight here in the office. The biggest danger, or “blocker” in game development parlance, continues to be the server backend. You may recall that we pushed the release because we did not want to use the standard CryEngine server and net-code. Instead, we decided it would be more efficient to use the system which will form the nucleus of Star Citizen’s persistent servers in the future. We have high hopes that the solution will be ready in time for launch… and that that solution will stand up to the hundreds of thousands of Citizens waiting to battle it out. The very success that Star Citizen has had in building such a large community so early in its development is also one of its most challenging – launching the DFM will be akin to launching a major online game. Except we aren’t even close to being finished. It’s a high wire act of the most difficult proportions! — Chris Roberts Travis Day, Dogfight Producer Our Santa Monica office has accomplished a lot over the past month and we’re all very excited to share with the community about what we have been up to! We’re hitting the stage with the Dogfighting Module where everything is starting to come together into a product that we are proud of and we sincerely hope our fans will enjoy. Our team here is led by Chris Roberts and historically the Santa Monica office has been responsible for virtually all design and engineering for the Dogfighting Module. Over the past month we have brought on a lot of support from our brothers and sisters in arms across the company and all our of development partners. At this point there is not a single studio whether internal or external who is not involved in some critical piece of the Dogfighting Module and it is great working together with everyone towards a unified objective. To this end on the Production team we have spent a great deal of effort over the past month scheduling out all of the teams tasks, identifying which studios are best suited to contribute on certain features, and dividing up all the work according to our schedules and skillsets. We’ve also coordinated having many different team members (at one point 14 at once!) visiting here in LA to get training on some of the systems we’ve developed, get direction from Chris, and train us on systems they’ve created that we could use on Dogfighting. At the same time Production is continuing to work with several external partners (not counted on the game development headcount) on having them create some upcoming ship commercials which we look forward to sharing with you guys! On the Design side we’ve had Pete Mackay out visiting from Austin and working diligently on refining and balancing all of our ship systems and their interactions with the HUD/UI. There are really a lot of cool interactive systems on in these ships! It has been really important to make sure our HUD/UI for Dogfighting captures all these systems and displays them in an understandable fashion that allows players to have insight and control over what’s going on “under the hood”. To this end we’ve actually had visitors from the UK, Montreal, and Austin all working with the folks here to make sure we provide a HUD/UI that will really blow people away and showcase the fidelity level of our ships and their simulated systems. From a technical perspective our Engineers and Tech Design staff have been working on finishing off and bug fixing the vehicle damage system for our current ships. We’ve got it to the point where you can quite surgically pick a ship apart piece by piece and watch its various systems fail out before it ultimately explodes. The distinct visual pleasure of watching a ship blown to pieces has gone up a great deal recently too with Forrest Stephan and our new hire Casey Robinson working on generating some beautiful visual effects for the weapons, ship damage, and shields. You’ll get to see and hear a lot more about the vehicle damage systems soon! Last but certainly not least our Physics Programmer, John Pritchett, has been hard at work finalizing the ships new flight models and g-force system. The new flight model allows the IFCS (Intelligent Flight Control System) to handle the orientation and thrust of all the thrusters independently in order to achieve the desired vector and velocity changes provided by player input while staying within a safe g-force envelope to prevent unconsciousness. It also has several modes which will allow you six degrees of freedom control, automatic turn banking where the ship rolls to orientations which are most conducive to the pilot surviving the g-force load, and disabled where you can rapidly maneuver but will quickly cause yourself to blackout. As we move into the month of March we will be continuing to fine tune these systems while finishing a few more like the LOD (level of detail) system, continued work on the HUD/UI, additional spectacular visual effects, and continuing bug fixing. CIG Santa Monica currently includes 24 developers: Chris Roberts, 1 production specialist, 3 designers, 3 artists, 6 programmers and ten others (marketing, legal, community, customer support.) We all hope you’ve enjoyed reading about what we’ve been up to and if you have any questions please feel free to throw your questions into our “Ask a Developer” threads on the forums. Eric Peterson, Studio Director CIG Texas is hard at work on the server backend and providing support for other areas of the DFM. As it is all hands on deck for the big Dogfighting push, we have some of the team embedded in LA with the dogfighting team. However, work on the PU and Hangar has not stopped! Patch 11 added functionality to the Cutlass and the 11.1 patch added the promised Oculus Rift support. This isn’t just a cool feature: it’s also meeting one of our early stretch goal promises. The art team is going full bore with character modeling, block outs for helmets, fleshing out character rigs, doing the damage states and LODs for the Hornet and Scythe, finishing up the maneuvering thruster models, and keeping the style guides up to date for all the manufactures and outsource partners. Programming is primarily working on the backend server infrastructure for the DFM, as well as build system improvements, tools creation, PBR integration, and hangar bug fixes. Animation has been busy teaching all the new hires inside CIG how to properly animate for Star Citizen, as well as running the first full performance capture test shoot for SQ42, and doing animations and fixes for the ships for the DFM and in the hangar. Design this month has been working on material preparation for PBR, Data migration to Articy for Glactapedia, looking for design candidates, updates to the hangar like improving the firing range, as well as systems design for the PU. Audio is working on finalizing the interactive music design, working on various sound effects on ships in dogfighting from thrusters to weaponry etc, ramping up to record voice/facial mocap actors for NPC pilots and in cockpit computers, and continuing to work on SFX for planetside environments. In addition I am happy to report that we have begun the integration of PBR or Physically Based Rendering (PBR). We still need to update many of our materials, but thanks to CryTek and their latest code drop, we can make this happen in a much smoother fashion. Upcoming Hangar patches will start to enable PBR, and we will convert ships and other content to the PBR system as they are needed for Dogfighting. For a great look at the state of PBR, check out our recent video on the Scythe transition. Our team currently consists of 45 people: 5 designers, 14 artists, 11 programmers, 3 audio experts, 4 QA/IT specialists and 8 production team members! Erin Roberts, Studio Director Here in Manchester, we’ve hit the ground running: at the end of last year we were tasked with the responsibility of building Squadron 42’s first missions, a sort of test to get our designers and programmers up to speed with the CryEngine. I’m pleased to report that the team is really taking to the system, as evidenced by the asteroid base and mining system we recently revealed as the backdrop for the game’s first series! In fact, the overall Star Citizen design team thought so much of the spider-shaped industrial mining tools, shown recently on Wingman’s Hangar,that we’re now working to integrate them into the persistent universe’s mining system. Elsewhere, Foundry 42 continues to staff up; meanwhile designers are building missions, programmers are expanding the CryEngine and artists are building ships… with an obvious special attention towards military craft. These include the Gladiator and Retaliator, which we have just taken responsibility for. But don’t be surprised if the next massive capital ship you see was also built in Manchester. Be sure and watch our recent Foundry 42 update video to check out some of our work in action! We are also helping with the drive on getting the dogfighting module out to everyone. Design is pushing hard on finalizing the gameplay rules and experience in our playable maps. The artists are really pushing on the visual quality working on in our playable maps. The artists are really pushing on the visual quality really trying to show case Cryengine at its best, and the coders are working on supporting the implementation of a few remaining systems we are trying to cram into dog fighting. The Squadron 42 team at Foundry 42 currently includes 34 members: 11 artists, 11 designers, 7 programmers, a creative director, 3 managers and myself. Mathieu Beaulieu, Producer Here in cold Montreal, Canada, we are keeping warm by working hard on the Mobiglas, the Avatar Customisation, the Economy System and Planetside, We have just finished the first pass on implementing a basic framework for all UI related functionality. This framework will help all studios for any UI development. At the moment we are using this framework to integrate the Augmented Reality functionality on the Mobiglas 1 and to build the Avatar Customisation System. For Planetside, both the exterior and interior of Arc Corp are taking shape. We have also started laying out the other planets from the Stanton system 2, as well as concepts for new solar systems. Arc Corp is really important to us and is taking some time to develop since we want it to set the visual quality for all other planets. On the economy system 3, all the technology is in place. We have a server that talks with the game client and we are now starting to build the control room where we’ll be able to play with the variables of the economy. Finally, we are also working closely with Austin on the Asteroid Hangar. For all hangars, we are developing a room system. This will allow you to add rooms to your hangar, such as the firing range. All this great work is being made by a team of 32 developers: 9 engineers, 10 3D artists, 5 concept artists, 6 designers and 2 project manager. See you soon on Arc Corp. CGBot – Sergio Rosas, Founder CGBot has been hard at work down here in sunny Monterrey, Mexico. We are currently working on space suits for the explorer class, getting the Idris ready for Squadron 42, getting materials updated for the big PBR push, and damage states for the Aurora. CGBot currently employs 18 artists on Star Citizen. Sorry Canada – we are not sure what you mean by winter. Sean Murphy, Outsource Manager Some of the most in demand sci-fi artists from film and television are doing work for us on Star Citizen, people like Ryan Church (Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars), Jim Martin (Star Trek, AI, The Matrix Reloaded), Geoffrey Mandel (Serenity/Firefly), and Justin Sweet (Avengers). Overall, we have 15 freelance artists working around the world on alien race look and feel, designs for both human and alien space ships, as well as graphical logos for corporations in the game both human and alien. [Redacted] The FPS team are hard at work building the first person experience. This month our focus has been on extending and overhauling the movement system to accommodate zero gravity and Star Citizen’s intensely immersive animation driven movement. From the way bodies move in weightlessness to the way eyes track the things we’re looking at, everything is getting a hyper-technical going over and rebuild to ensure the vision of the game gets the support it deserves. Of course, while our designers and engineers work out the best ways to fight on foot and in space, the art team has been hard at work building one of the many locations players will be able to visit in the game, in this case an abandoned space station that has since been taken over by pirates! The build out uses the “tier system” we’ve created to make rapid production of the game’s massive locations possible, all without sacrificing visual quality. The tier system is a modular building and design system where structures and locations are broken down into elements that can snap together in myriad different configurations, each possibility designed to be just as visually appealing as the others. This way, we can produce numerous locations that use common assets and architecture to ensure the same visual and emotional feel of common locations (such as stations built by the same company) and seamless transitions from one set of modules to another, all while maximizing variety without sacrificing quality. We can’t wait to show it off to the world! This work is being made possible by 21 staff: eight artists, five programmers, four animators, a level designer, a creative director, a producer and one sound effects contractor. Mark Day, Studio Director Here are some highlights from our task list for February: Art Interior concept art for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Interior concept art for Hardpoint Guys completed (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Exterior geometry for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Interior geometry for Bones completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Exterior geometry for Monorail station completed (The Blocks, Terra Prime). Third revision of Monorail station geometry & texturing complete (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). 2nd pass on Centermass “ Beautiful Corner “. Preparation for the conversion to PBR. Design Initial pass of AI paths completed using Kythera system (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Lift system animations completed (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). Hornet land and take offs functioning using Kythera system (Landing Zone, Terra Prime). While the above tasks reflect the activities for the month… they don’t reflect the effort. We are not just making your average “next-gen“space game. We are constantly reminded that providing work that would easily meet expectations on titles like Star Wars The Old Republic or Mass Effect doesn’t reach the high-quality demands of Chris Roberts, Mark Skelton and Chris Olivia. The feedback and art direction we receive is both challenging and extremely satisfying when we see the end results. Pushing to achieve Chris’ vision for planet-side locations like Terra has us putting in lots of extra hours… but doing some of the best work of our careers. Terra is being made real by a team of six: four artists, a level designer and a production manager. We’re actively looking for additional environmental artists in the San Francisco Bay area! Benoit Beauséjour, Founder On the web platform side, February was the launch of the new revamped comments thread system as well the re-introduction of a poll module to the forums. Poll away! Many mobile optimizations have been put in place to ease browsing the site on mobile phones and tablets, this is an effort we have to continue. We have done great progress on the design and development of Multi-Factor authentication which we hope to bring to production soon! Obviously and as always, many bugs were fixed and deployed in more than 6 code update. A considerable amount of time has been spent in connecting website ship data to the game in order to deliver up to date statistics on the site for all know ship models and variants. This work is factored into a major overhaul of the Ship Specs page where we will present a new way to browse ships, specs and other relevant stats (and more!) directly on the site and store pages. The Organizations system saw a great deal of design decisions and progress made on the features Drop Two. The development of the Chart viewer and the division/jobs manager taking the bulk of the design & development time. We have taken the decision to split the Drop Two into a smaller Drop (1.5?) in order to get multiple organizations membership deployed faster. The Chat system is also undergoing some under-the-hood changes to support the expanding (fast!) list of Organizations. Turbulent’s Star Citizen team consists of eight people: a producer, manager, artist, UE expert and two each front and back-end developers. As the community continues to grow, the team has to spend time in expanding the infrastructure to properly host the different services that the RSI platform is using. A major server upgrade has begun in February (and is still underway) to update the current server infrastructure to use more powerful and cheaper systems. Sorry Mexico, No Olympic medals for you! CIG Employee Count CIG Los Angeles 24 CIG Austin 45 Foundry 42 34 Total 103 Outsource Employee Count BHVR 32 FPS 21 Void Alpha 6 Turbulent 8 CGBot 18 Other 9 Freelance 15 Total 109 Grand Total 212 Links ----- Text URL 1 [ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13302-CitizenCon-And-MobiGlas-Concept ](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13302-CitizenCon-And-MobiGlas-Concept) 2 [ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/unfiled/13141-Galactic-Guide-Stanton-System ](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/unfiled/13141-Galactic-Guide-Stanton-System) 3 [ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13128-The-Star-Citizen-Economy ](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13128-The-Star-Citizen-Economy) Images ------ 20 image/jpeg [ ![](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/1voadjmwj49znr/source/ChrisRobertsDirecting-300x201.jpg) 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[Info](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/images/38060) image/jpeg [ ![](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/pgmk7f9gt3j9y/source.jpg) ](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/pgmk7f9gt3j9y/source.jpg) source.jpg [Details](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/images/38084) Last Modified 1 year ago Size 1.99 MB [Source](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/pgmk7f9gt3j9y/source.jpg) [Info](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/images/38084) image/png [ ![](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/svep7j1purh1f/source.png) ](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/svep7j1purh1f/source.png) source.png [Details](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/images/40391) Last Modified 10 months ago Size 5.29 MB [Source](https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/svep7j1purh1f/source.png) [Info](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/images/40391) Metadata -------- CIG ID 13610 Channel Undefined Category Undefined Series Monthly Reports Comments 599 Published 12 years ago (2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00) [RSI Article](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13610-Monthly-Report-February-2014) [API](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/api/comm-links/13610)