Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the thirteenth devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of August 2021.
August marked an important milestone for O:HD, as it was the first full month that modders were able to get their hands on the OHDcore SDK and start experimenting with modding. There have already been a lot of very cool projects being made, including night vision and thermal mods, a picture-in-picture system for scopes, a handful of new maps, total conversion projects, ports of existing mods for other games, retextures of models, and so on. It’s been great to watch people show off their work, figure out challenges and learn new things together, and help each other out. Here soon it will also be possible to actually package and play these mods as well, so everybody is going to be able to enjoy and share their creations with the community.
We have also successfully contracted several members of the modding community to officially work on O:HD in order to incorporate their mods into the base game (which I will go into more detail about later in this devblog), so it’s already excellent to see cohesion and working relationships being generated between the modding scene and the official development team—this is an important part of our vision of working alongside the community to make O:HD into the framework and experiences that everybody wants to see. The support on the Patreon has been a massive help as well, and is a big reason that we are able to do things like this with the community, so thank you to all of the Patreon backers that have been showing support!
We greatly appreciate everyone who has been active with modding so far trying out the SDK and giving us feedback! The SDK is still very much a work in progress, so all comments, critiques, questions, and so on have been extremely helpful for the team in planning future improvements and updates to the framework. If you want to chat with other modders, are looking for a place to learn more or help others out, or just want to talk about game dev and modding, be sure to join our Discord and look for the modding categories!
Now onto the past month’s worth of work:
Expansions
Operation: Invictus
We have another round of the “Three Shot Burst” developer interviews prepared by the ISMC team:
Interview with Dean, a.k.a. Wolf_95, developer for Operation: Invictus
Operation: Invictus is the flagship expansion for the upcoming title Operation: Harsh Doorstop. It is the newest project created by the original devs of the ISMC mod.
1. What are the most important lessons you've learned from the games you've previously worked on?
The two most important things I've learned are these: don't be afraid to make mistakes, and use your free time wisely. on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, I did facial animations for Cpt. Price, Alex, Farah, and Gaz - and there was a ton of "learn by doing". The crunch time was tough and I was worried I was in over my head, but I recalled my old boxing coach's advice: Pressure makes diamonds. I worked vigorously, asked questions, made mistakes, and learned from them - all of which made me better.
2. In what ways has your experience playing airsoft influenced the way you think about art in games/films?
I enjoy learning about things by stripping them apart and putting them back together - hopefully improving them as well. It's a useful perspective in 3D modeling and animation - I wanted to understand every small detail, and that gives me insight on how to improve them. Airsofting also taught me effective teamwork towards a common goal, and making that process as fun as possible. In games, I think the fun you have making it is reflected in the final product, and it's impossible to fake.
3. What franchise would be your dream to work on?
When I was two, my dad and I played Resident Evil, and I've been hooked on the series ever since. [laughs] I have the Umbrella Corporation logo tattooed on my arm/neck/shoulder/ass. The time we spent playing that game is what interested me in game development, and it'd be so fulfilling to work on the series. I'd love to help make a Resident Evil: Outbreak MMO/Survival-Horror someday - that's been a dream since I was young.
Bio: Dean, a.k.a. Wolf_95, is an experienced CG industry professional, working on The Last of Us: Part II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Gears of War 5, and the film IT Part 2, as well as others that are still under NDA. He creates 3D models and character art for O:HD. He's an accomplished musician, and an avid airsofter, living in Southwest Scotland.
Here is some of the new content for Operation: Invictus that the ISMC team worked on last month:
AS VAL
SVD/Dragunov
New Eastern European militant model for an upcoming character pertaining to Invictus’s story/lore (and yes he will receive boots)
Concept art for more variations of the global terrorist network that will be used in Invictus’s story/lore
Operation: Overlord
New assets for the Operation: Overlord expansion:
M1911A1 to replace the existing one—this will of course not just be used in Operation: Overlord as this pistol was used throughout numerous wars/conflicts
Motorola SCR-300 Radio Transceiver
ZF39 Scope for the Kar98
Operation: Rolling Stone
The NVA character has received a new head:
Maps
Lam Dong
Lam Dong’s jungle foliage colors were tweaked to blend together better with the environment (plus some pretty screenshots):
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino was finalized with tall and retaining walls, props were placed throughout the outside of the Abbey and in the Abbey courtyards for hard cover, and foliage was improved (including more natural ground clutter in certain places):
Argonne
No updates for Argonne, just some nice screenshots of the new scoped Springfield rifle:
Risala
No updates for Risala either, just more nice screenshots showing off the scoped SKS and some of the map’s scale:
Khafji
The landscape materials for Khafji were tweaked for more variety of ground textures, and more ground details:
Animations
New weapon animations were made:
MP7, M40A1, FG42, M3A1 Grease Gun, MP40 (this one is older but never included in prior devblogs)
Objects, Models, and Textures
World Props and Environment Assets
Various props and environment assets were created for Risala and Monte Cassino:
Gate/arches for Risala, and a fountain and statues for the Abbey in Monte Cassino
And an ammo supply crate:
Weapon Parts
An optic was also made by a new modeler on the team:
Colt Brownell 3-4x Optic
Upcoming and WIP Features
Community Hires
Thanks to all of the generous support we have received on the Patreon, we are pleased to announce that last month we onboarded and hired several members out of the community that started working on numerous features that we have had on the agenda, but haven’t had the time to get to: gore, vaulting and mantling, and an overhaul to our animation systems (making them more procedural and dynamic, which will be necessary for some of the other features we have planned, such as weapon customization).
In this devblog we only have previews of the gore work, created by Xorberax (the creator of the Bloodlust mod for Arma 3), to share with you:
Next month we should have content to show off of the other systems—they are a bit too early to show off at this point, or the bulk of their work/improvements were done in September (in which case they aren’t suited for this devblog). Stay tuned!
Mod Content Loading System
The lead programmer started work on the content loading system, which includes support for creating, packaging, and running user-generated modifications from the packaged game client and server deployed on Steam. As of the time of this devblog, an update should have been pushed to the main branch of the game allowing for mods to now be loaded into the game!
In order to use a mod, place the mod folder in the following directory:
\Steam\steamapps\common\Harsh Doorstop\HarshDoorstop\Mods
Please note—if you do NOT have a Mods folder in this directory, simply create it yourself. If you have downloaded a mod and it is a zipped file, make sure that you unzip it first. Here is an example of what a proper Mods folder should look like (please note that the following file path is for the Test Environment, although it is no different for the Main Branch):
If you are a modder and you are not sure how to create and package mods, please join the Discord and look for the modding categories to seek assistance.
Bots/AI
The AI systems also received a cleanup pass which consisted of various fixes and QoL adjustments to the setup and behavior of the O:HD AI GOAP implementation. The AI can now also spawn at the forward most spawnable cap points now. More improvements to AI coming soon!
Other Fixes and Improvements
In addition, the lead programmer assisted with some refactoring and cleanup of the WIP scope/optics code, as well as implemented some fixes in the engine code for various client-side issues that players would intermittently encounter after a map change.
—
That’s all for August, thank you for taking the time to read if you have gotten this far. Another big thank you to the Patreon supporters! The support has been amazing the past few months, and has been a huge help in moving things forward at a quicker pace. Your support not only contributes to getting members of the official team paid, but also allows us to put money right back into the community by hiring talented modders to officially contribute straight to the project.
Make sure to join the O:HD Discord, and be sure to follow our Steam announcements to track updates. See you all next time!
-Goomes, Lead Community Manager