Greetings Survivors!
Lets start out this week by recapping what was shared via the Official Forums, and Dev Hub.
Andrej our Sound Designer shared some work in progress versions of the new infected sounds over on the development board. The ones shared are obviously only the male infected sounds, but are give a good representation of the direction the sound department is headed with their side of the new infected work.
Dev Hub - WIP Infected SFX
As well, Andrej, Peter, and myself headed down south to Moravia to visit an open air shooting range with the Arma sound team. New sound effects for a wide array of weapons were recorded for both titles. Obviously a good deal of work will have to be done to prepare them for use within each title, but it is an important step towards driving the authenticity of the firearms within DayZ.
Viktor, our Lead Animator shared a work in progress video of the new player controller, and some of the gestures/movements possible with it. Obviously it goes without saying that this is still very early, but as development on both DayZ and the core Enfusion engine progresses - more of this work gets merged into the stable branch. I for one cannot wait to see survivors interact with the new player controller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8Hv8wnmfQ
Honza T, and Peter our Lead Designer have been over on the Official DayZ forums (and the Dev Hub) to discuss the potential evolution of the 3PP Camera - how it will effect gameplay, and gather feedback on the prototype work done so far. As mentioned prior, this is all prototype work - and something we've wanted to address since long before the Early Access began. 3PP camera allowing you to see things that are outside your line of sight is a huge pain in the ass for us. I'm confident we'll be able to address this smoothly, without compromising the visual enjoyment many folks get out of 3PP camera perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-gtNWvocd0
Looking forward towards the 0.55 Stable release work continues on the Central Economy, Group AI, and the new player controller. For 0.55 though we do have a nice list of content, as well as the initial implementation of the new infected AI. This should allow us to greatly increase the amount of infected spawning per server. (Roughly triple) Now, this won't get us to where we want to be at 1.0, but it is a strong step forward. Obviously a more robust system for where, and how the infected spawn - as well as plugging it into systems such as the dynamic events to allow us to spawn hordes is the end goal here.
The ongoing work with the Central Economy will (when pushed to stable) allow us far more granular control over what spawns, in what type of area, and in what quantity. This is a huge step forward for us in terms of pushing DayZ closer to the punishing struggle for survival that is intended to be. As well, when fully functional it should allow the environment team a much broader canvas to where they place structures, and free the economy from defining a broad scope per building type.
Lastly, work on the security side is always ongoing. Several new ban waves have gone out addressing some new issues - and on the engine side, the bigger scope tasks of addressing legacy vulnerabilities continues. In April we hope to announce a few new initiatives that will allow us to fully take advantage of the valuable in-development time that DayZ Early Access provides us in order to have a more secure title at 1.0.
On a personal note, I recently encountered an amazing fan made intro for a DayZ content creator's twitch stream that is -amazingly- well done, and really drives home the style of play this content creator produces. I strongly encourage you to take three minutes of your time and check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rRVO-1-1PA
I hope to see you all in Chernarus, and don't worry - I have a mic.
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
"The animation team has recently finished some major tasks related to the new zombie implementation. Our next focus is improving these and adding some advanced behavior. We will look into improving hit reactions by adding directional hits. One of upcoming updates will also include crawling infected.
Besides that we are working on the new player character, which is a huge task divided into many small parts. Currently, we have basic movement for unarmed, rifle, two handed and pistols working. That means we can walk and run around when holding this items. Unfortunately there is big load of work left. We are still missing attack animations, aiming, reloading, special moves, item usage and many other specific actions. On the other hand, we have already managed to bring some improvements in.
The most notable one is synchronized animations when running and walking. That means when you switch from one move to another there is no glitch. New animation continues where previous left. Another important addition is using gestures while moving. Yes, finally you can wave and run around. On the same note is switching weapons. Player is able to take or hide gun while moving and any time you stop running the character will stop, but arming/disarming will continue. And last but not least, we have now falling and landing animations. It is a placeholder in current state, but the idea is to have different landing animations depending on the height of the fall."
- Viktor Kostik / Lead Animator
Standup Notes for the week of 24 Mar 15
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)
Animation:
- Support for new player character system
- UMP 45 Reloading Animations
- New Mocap List WIP
- SVD Reloading Animations
- Bugfixing
Design:
- Central Economy
- Barrel Crafting
- Infected
- Diseases
- Triggers
- Plant Pests
- Fireplaces
- 3PP Camera Prototyping
- Vehicle Transmission
Programming:
- Inventory refactorization
- Dynamic Events
- Vehicle Transmission bugfixing
- Infected/Animal AI
- New Player Character controller
- Advanced Loot Distro bugfixing
- Network and Memory Optimizations
- A.I. Lure prototyping
- Additional Server.cfg variables
- AI Noise modifiers for weapons