Ok, I think the next major step in ZGA's development will be the long overdue visual overhaul. This is quite likely what I'll be working on for the next month or so. I've made a start on this by making a new floor model, and also some wall panels. I've added these to the map "Factory" with this update, for feedback, but it's by no means finished, so keep in mind: not all the art assets are redone yet, so there may be some clashing between the old and new assets; and the wall panels won't bear very close examination, since you can see behind them in certain places, and also they need something to cover up the joins on the edges and corners. I'd really like to hear what you think of the progress so far though, since I think this in particular is something I'm going to need player feedback on.
Something that's going to be of critical importance during the art overhaul is keeping performance in mind. Game performance is a hugely complicated topic, so it's very hard to predict the changes for various hardware. Another reason in testing out the new assets in Factory is to see what impact it has on performance on various systems. I can't imagine the game will run faster for anyone, since I am using more objects and polygons than before, but I don't think it will necessarily run any slower on every system. Do let me know whether you see any change in performance on Factory. You may find you have to turn down effects, if you had them on high, since there are a lot more reflections now.
I've exposed some of UE4's performance monitoring tools, which will help with this.
User made maps:
- There two completely new maps from Ex3mx (Max Graw) this week. Both of them look fantastic, which is an emerging theme for Max's maps, as well as a very high standard overall:
- Space: This is another great looking map. It's inspired by a certain sci-fi franchise (I think you'll be able to tell which, since he's captured the basic essence of it's look perfectly).
- Photograph: I think you'll notice a semblance between this and Max's last map, Museum. It's got an art-gallery vibe to it once again, but rather than a modern art gallery, it features some lovely photographs hanging on the walls (or ceilings?). It's also very aesthetically pleasing as a whole.
ADDITIONS:
- The new art assets in Factory.
- There's now a brief HUD pop up which displays the map name, current game mode and the map's creator whenever you join a match, or when the map changes. The main reason for my adding this is because previously the map makers were only credited in the map select screen, therefore only server hosts saw who made a map. I think it's very important to credit map creators clearly. Another bonus is that people will become more familiar with the map names, and also be aware what the current game mode is on arrival.
- I've made some of UE4's performance monitoring tools available to use in game. Be aware, I'll probably change these key bindings in future.
- The 8 key brings up a superior framerate monitor.
- The 9 key shows the amount of time spent by the CPU and GPU per frame, which will help determine where the bottleneck is.
- The 0 key should be showing a breakdown of the time spent by the GPU on various tasks per frame. This doesn't immediately seem to be working as it did in editor though, and instead, bizarrely, just seems to take a screenshot. Probably it's writing to a log or something, I'm sure I'll find out.
CHANGES:
- I think I've been using UE4's networking system completely wrong until now (I think I fell victim to a misleading description). Anyway, I'll spare you the details here but I'm hoping this will have finally fixed the majority of disconnection problems. Also, I'm hoping it will reduce bandwidth use and generally improve the quality of the netcode. I think this is actually pretty interesting, so if you'd like to hear my attempt at an explanation of this as I understand it, just ask in the comments, and I'll happily share one.
- Weaponized grapple changes:
Some people thought the weaponized grapple was OP. I think they may well have been right, although it's easy to get a distorted impression of weapon balance. In any case, I've nerfed the weaponized grapple a fair bit to be on the safe side, since there's not really a risk of making it under powered in the same way as other weapons, as it's always used in combination with other weapons, rather than instead of. I'll test it out online some more anyway.
- Damage per hit to 40 from 60
- Impact impulse to 75000 from 100000. This is just enough to knock you briefly off the floor, but won't send you sprawling like before, which was a bit of a death sentence if the attacker was quick enough with follow up shots.
- Cooldown per target to 1.5 from 1 second (although it was accidentally 60 seconds between the last update and this one [see bugfixes]).
- Avatars now spawn facing the direction determined by the spawn point. Previously, I think they just spawned facing the same direction, even if there was a wall there. Keep in mind, I haven't set sensible spawn directions for all the spawn points in my old maps yet, so they might still seem a little random.
- The in game menu is no longer open by default. It only used to because the previous menu had some kind of problem when I tried to close it by default (I can't remember the specifics).
- A few minor changes to Factory, as well as the new art assets.
- Health bar is green-yellow, from pure green. My new knowledge of colour theory leads me to believe that this will go better with the pure red and blue bars.
BUGFIXES:
- I've eliminated one cause of the host's volume cutting out every time a client joins. If there were multiple causes though, it wouldn't be the first time, so let me know if this issue is still around. I'm pretty sure it's fixed though. This kind of thing is obviously difficult to test until the change is live.
- This isn't technically a bug by the strictest definition, but I set the weaponized grapple to have a cooldown of 60 seconds per target while trying to reproduce a crash and forgot to reset it back to 1 second afterwards. It's back to 1.5 seconds now.
- I have no idea if this is really fixed, but someone seemed to spawn outside of the Factory map, somehow. I'd already moved the spawn points around in my local project by the time this happened, so I can't remember where they were before, but it sounds like the problem may have been due to a spawn point too close to a wall. In any case, they're clear from the walls now, so we'll just have to see if this happens again.
- I've finally fixed the thing with the camera clipping into the walls, when it's pressed against a wall on the right side, so no more using this to "wall hack".