We're entering the last two business weeks of 2017, and before we let the holiday spirit take over our offices on 23rd, it's time for one more update from our teams - today, Eugen is recapping some of the recently made bullet-point style progress across departments, Peter takes a look at ladders, climbing and the melee combat of 0.63, Adam teases the NWAF changes along with tourist trails, and Viktor has two sexy GIFs, one of which teases a feature that will change DayZ combat in a totally unexpected way. After a pause, we also have Baty back, with loads of your amazing community content <3. Let's read, it's good for you!
Contents This Week
- Dev Update/Eugen
- Dev Update/Peter
- Dev Update/Viktor
- Dev Update/Adam
- Community Spotlight
Dev Update/Eugen
Dear players.
First, I would like to thank you for all the critical feedback on the last status report, it was a hard one. Expectation were high, and we chose a road littered with risks going for the new engine, for the larger benefit in the long run. The team knew this wasn't going to be easy, but almost all major uncertainties are resolved and we are looking at brighter future for both you the players, and the team here. We also understand and agree the call for a more visual representation of this years' progress and there is an end of the year video in the works right now.
Many of you were asking about the console version of DayZ and the team working on it. Our goal has always been to release a PC version of DayZ first before we turn to players on PS4 or Xbox. That hasn't changed. There is only one person working on each of these ports at the moment, keeping things intact so we have an easier time adapting the experience when the team is done with the PC version. We will be happy to share more details once we are in a better state of things with the PC version.
There is more to enjoy visually in the rest of the Status Report, and there is no reason to repeat myself more, so let's take a quick look at some of the work that has been done over the past month / is in progress - and then we are just going to get back to work, and get more shit done :).
Programmers Team
- Network optimisations - bit stream implementation, network traffic optimisations for AI and players
- Weapon & inventory bugfixing
- Movement tweaking of character controller for better gameplay experience
- Character's prone state
- New offline database
- Hive refactorization for 0.63
- Login system bugfixing
- Damage system - new texture switching of damaged entities
- Bugfixing and optimizations of central loot economy
- AI - Animals:
- Threat state behaviour and actions
- Animals freeze in random intervals fixed
- Various crash fixes
- External launcher - adding local mods
Design Team
- Items for Christmas event configuration and setup for Central Economy for 0.62 version
- Melee combat refactor of targeting and implementation of it's second check at hit event
- Connected item quantities to Central Economy
- Optimalization of UI client/server middle layer
- Notifiers code clean up
- Localization support
- Options screens refactor
- Stamina system refactor
- Firearms unjamming refactor
- Implementing state machines for AKM and SVD
- Implemented new network synchronization for electricity, traps, fireplace, cooking, placing, life span, user actions
- Implemented sounds for bear trap, landmine, defibrillator
- Parts of HUD can be toggled on/off by pressing or holding [~]
- Implemented prototype particle for AKM, UMP and CZ61
- Animated perimeter for a land mine
- Identification of blood type in inspect menu after blood test
Animation Team
- AKM, SVD reload animations implemented
- Polishing for prone 360 aimspace poses
- Player turns improvements
- Animations for Hatchback reworked due to vehicle scale changes
- Animals herding behavior: the most of the progress has been done on new herding behavior for domesting animals. Although it doesn't require massive support from animation side we found usefull to change some poses and especially lookat mechanic to bring as natural feeling on close distance as possible. Most of the work has been done in new AI tools on animal configuration side. Anyway we already have functional prototype of a herd that can be shepherd through the map.
- Animals animations: Sheep animation pack is progressing. Goat animation pack has been finished
Art Team
- NWAF assets
- Radar tower rework
- 2-floor barracks
- Fuel tanks
- Reworked Pile of tyres
- Reworked Blast covers
- Weapons rework
- Abandoned Chernarus – harvester header
- Reworked male heads
- Decayed textures
- Christmas items
- Animal damage zones
- Bugfixing
- doors
- firegeometry
- geometry
- visual issues
- foliage issues
Map Design Team
- Chernarus tourist trails
- We have finished 200km network along with tweaks to the satellite and surface mask and final checks and polish
- Tourist trails are now ready for survivors in 0.63, the only thing that is left to solve is the map stand that is located at several key trail crossings, but that on itself does not block / prevent people from using the trails as there are 93 detailed directional signs to help them where they want to go
- NWAF overhaul
- Improved satellite and surface mask within the whole NWAF area
- Object layout improvements and fixes
- Coal power plant prototype done (last missing object)
- Tentapocalypse
- We have prepared varied interiors for two of the mostly used military tents to make such important object more interesting for players and more suitable for central economy to spawn items
- All instances of military tents on Chernarus were replaced with these new variants
- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer
Dev Update/Peter
As the new character also have to traverse vertical differences in structures, we've started with new implementation of ladders. You don't need much to observe that the behaviour of old character on ladders in 0.62 (and older) is quite unpleasant visually and partially lacking also from the functional point of view.
Transition animations for getting on off a ladder will be added for several situations, even from/to water, as well as to sides when there isn’t any free space available behind the ladder. As we unified dimensions of ladders thorough all structures, the positioning of character hands and feet will match that of ladder steps.
It’s still valid that getting on a ladder is done through interact action (same as manipulating with doors) and getting off will be automatic at the end of the ladder. We would also like to add proper continuous ladders going through more floors, on which character can optionally get off the ladder, and where it won’t be necessary to ‘pixel hunt’ for proper interact action to get on the ladder and continue in desired direction. However, this has a lower priority as we need to solve simple ladders first.
As climbing the ladder is exposing you in situations that can be relatively dangerous, we are adding the possibility to quickly scale up the ladder, or to fast slide down the ladder. I would like to also see jumping off the ladder as it could be useful in some critical situations - in trade off for a higher risk of injury after landing. But again, this is lower on priority list for the ladders implementation.
When I mentioned jumping, let me make it clear: we will be adding jumping, alongside with climbing over obstacles later, after ladders are done, as smooth traversing through environment is very crucial for DayZ gameplay.
Ongoing work is being done on a melee combat system to make it skill based with clear rules.
Blocking and evades are implemented and functional, awaiting a polishing run. We are trying different control schemes for melee combat iteratively to achieve intuitive controls. Same goes for timing animations and their cancellation, as we want to have combat flow as seamless and fluid as possible to avoid clunkiness.
Knockdowns to the ground and finishing attacks on laying character are still on the TO DO list.
These are directly related to melee combat in prone, which was just a step away, as we had a request for absolute freedom of aiming firearm in prone in 360 degrees, which is done thru smooth and continuous turn of character from belly to back and vice versa.
After knockdown during melee combat to the ground on back position (or in case of turning character to back from belly) you can use push kick to push opponent back, may it be survivor or infected, to avoid being hit with his finishing attacks which can be potentially devastating. Similarly, I would also like to see push kicks from stand with raised hands as well (applicable for firearms too), which will add really nice flavour and together with attacks, blocking and evades adds depth and open possibilities for tactics in melee combat (and additionally allows us things like kicking doors and others).
Anyway, I would like to thank you for your support during the tough year 2017. DayZ has the best community and it’s amazing to have you around. Thank you all!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year... see you in Chernarus folks!
- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer
Dev Update/Viktor
Hi everyone. Today, I'm going to provide you with a short update on what is happening in the animation team. Our priorities are pretty clear - main focus is still on the player character animations. That includes finishing turning animations, improving locomotion and adjusting the player graph.
At the same time, we have been working on some exciting stuff recently. Our player character now has a much wider range of motion while in prone. You can now fluently turn on your back, aim and shoot. This gives better control over the character and I am sure it will lead to many interesting situations in game. We have a basic prototype working and now we are starting to polish the animations, poses and camera behaviour. This will also require small motion capture session where we will record necessary transition animations.
In addition to that, we have also recently re-done enter/exit animations for some vehicles, so that player can enter and exit vehicles much faster. Recently implemented weapons in 0.63 include SVD, AKM and there is an ongoing work on the Mosin.
- Viktor Kostik / Lead Animator
Dev Update/Adam
It has been quite a long time since my last contribution to Status Report, but do not worry, it is just that we have been working very hard pushing towards our 0.63 goals. But before we talk about that - given the fact that is a last status report of 2017 - let me first dive a bit into the things that happened in 2017.
In 2017, Chernarus has gone through what probably is the biggest change since its inception in Arma 2. We have introduced a complete overhaul of forests aimed at bringing much needed variety to the landscape of Chernarus. This overhaul essentially doubled the object count (1.4 million to 2.8 mil., but with .63 changes, we are nearing 3 mil.), an increase that was only possible with the introduction of the Enfusion renderer (update 0.60).
In addition to this overhaul, update 0.62 also introduced phase 1 of a big western border rework (the last area that remained basically untouched since Arma 2 days). We have also overhauled the entire railway network and made global changes to the satellite texture. Vegetation model swap and the re-generated forests areas introduced quite a lot of issues with object placement (objects misplaced or clipping) and we will work hard to eliminate as much of these issues as possible prior to the stable 0.63 release to make sure the first BETA build is a step towards a more polished experience from your travels on Chernarus.
Now you may ask, what else can you expect from the map in 0.63?
- Completely re-done North West Airfield (NWAF) along with surrounding landscape
- 200 kilometres of tourist trails
- New locations on the western border of Chernarus
- New points of interest across the map
- New models for bushes and rocks
- New textures for roads and road damage decals
We will cover these points in better detail in future Status Reports. For now, we would like to thank you for joining us on our journey towards one of the most immersive game environments ever created. Very excited to show you what we have in store for 0.63 and beyond!
Merry xmas and happy new year!
- Adam Franců / Senior map designer
Community Spotlight
It's nice to be back with another Status Report - it's been 4 weeks already and I have a lot of community content that I need to show you. So sit down comfortably, this will be long.
Life doesn’t always bring only good things, and that is what I want to talk about today.
The first sad thing that happened is Wobo's leave. One of our big and longtime supporters is leaving the content creators’ scene, because he needs to take care of his mother who has cancer. He did his last stream to raise funds to help his mother and the DayZ community surprised him a lot. He had 4000+ people on the stream and raised over 35 000 dollars to help him with taking care of his mother. You can see here how amazing the DayZ community is!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/203744097
Wobo's mum underwent a 9-hour surgery and she will stay in the hospital for the next two weeks.
Everyone from DayZ Dev team wishes Wobo's mum good luck! Stay strong Wobo!
The second sad message arrived to our team from Tim, Max, Nils, Dominik, Vincent and Jonas.
These guys are a group of DayZ players who lost their friend Phil in a tragic accident this year. They are reminiscing about their first meeting:
"We met him at the very beginning of the DayZ standalone near the Rify in that old helicopter crash site (one of these that did not spawn randomly). It was a pretty hilarious situation as me and him did’nt see each other until the moment we both went inside the helicopter. We both panic so hard :D Even thought most of the players shot on sight at this time, we did not and 2 minutes later we both laught so hard together in his teamspeak, it was the beginning of the best friendship in my whole life. There are so much more great memories we shared together because of DayZ. Me and my whole squad really want to thank you for this memories!"
They sent us this message because it was Phil's birthday and they asked us to commemorate him in the game on the spot where they first met.
So we decided to place a memorial at this place in a form of a small cross. This cross will be in game since 0.63 and if you come across it, just remember it belongs to Phil, one of the players.
When we are talking about a group of players, Ferosso shared with us this amazing ugly-Christmas-sweater DayZ party photo and it looks so cool, I want to jump into it and join them! And look at the Chernarus map on the wall! Just wow.
I want to show you some nice edit by Spuddy0108, who turns a DayZ screenshot into The Long Dark's style. I really like it!
One more screenshot for you - Adam sent us a really creative picture of tents with chemlights inside and it looks awesome!
And how about an event this week? A lot is happening this Saturday 16th! You can choose from plenty of events:
- Noobs server is organizing The Hostage event where you need to take out the captors and successfully retrieve the hostage. More information here:
- DayZ UK Alliance invites you to The Genocide Run IV - a battle royale style event in teams of two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lixfnqRiPp8
- Or you can join Christmas RP event in the Green Dragon tavern on The DayZ Village
Let’s check out some videos now.
- I don't like long videos. But this movie by gekofish is awesome and I can't stop watching! You should check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q8LN5dnJRY
- If you like stories, you should watch this video by PolishedGuy, whose channel is full of interesting videos with good editing.
https://youtu.be/_Q8LN5dnJRY
- Another movie by Tickle - Ghost is telling us the story of a retired nurse, Ashley Gradham, discovering the complexities of the zombie apocalypse through a budding friendship with Richard Maxwell, a daring and quiet man with a difficult childhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZQW0qsItoI
- What about a cinematic? This is by Aschmad and he is challenging viewers to dive deep into the video and tell him what the character lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyZrWXlxW-w
- The last video is just a preview of a movie randmanq is working on. I am looking forward to the full movie!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kl2B00qn5c
Let's talk about Christmas. You will have your Christmas in Chernarus, we didn't forget, don't worry! There will be Christmas trees, and maybe a little smomething more, but that's still a secret. Watch our Twitter feed for more information!
We are almost at the end, but there is one more thing - the riddle! These guys answered correctly last time, good job:
- Skunkey
- Uncuepa
- JammieD96
- KalleKBerlin
- Waffels
- Alejandro Miranda
- Vetovote
And this is the riddle for this Status Report. Between which towns can you find this house? It is not that hard, so I expect a lot of correct answers on our official Twitter account.
That is all from me, have a nice holiday and see you in 2018!
Header image by Kwaakt
- Baty / Community Manager