Hello Drakelings!
Welcome to the twenty-seventh devblog for Operation: Harsh Doorstop. In this update, we will be reviewing the work that the team completed in the month of October 2022.
Maps
Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach is now ZWFKZ starting to move past its blockout phase, and will start to receive more final improvements to the terrain, buildings, world props/environment assets, and so on:
Current versions of Omaha Beach can already be played by Patreon supporters of the relevant tier, and is obtained directly from our Itch.io page, so if you want to check it out DFC28 be sure to grab it there.
Argonne
Argonne also received a few updates to the hardcover (more of it), foliage, and improved lighting layers:
Upcoming and WIP Features
Steam Workshop Support
The lead programmer HMRZE has now begun working on Steam Workshop support/integration, which will be the primary mod delivery method for O:HD once we go to early access. Workshop will likely not be available prior to this point (at least not for the Demo and Playtest builds), however, our intention is to hit early access with full Steam Workshop support day 1, and we are already well on the way to having this ready to go—at the time of this devblog we are roughly 70% complete with ZWGDQ this task.
Third Person Animation Improvements
Work continued on overhauling our third person animations. We redid the aiming offsets for third person resulting in a more natural pose, especially while prone:
We redid most of the layering of the locomotion third person and first person arm weapon poses. This has RREJY resulted in a far more fluid result, especially while sprinting, moving, or in the prone stance:
We also created new aiming transitions, as well as firing animations for third person to add some extra subtle details:
We have set up prone alignment nodes to match the angle of the surface the character is laying on, as well as leg IK surface displacement to match the character's leg pose to irregular terrain or slopes:
Last but not least, we added some basic/first pass first person animations for the vaulting system:
Additional Server Management Tools
We have added the ability to issue server commands in-game with basic admin management. In addition, we have manually defined a "one-time password", and supporters-only server whitelist capabilities for communities that wish to provide a more exclusive/closed experience.
Bots/AI
As mentioned last month, the AI programmer is now currently working on breaking contact/peeling behavior, the ability to understand and take advantage of hard cover, and the ability to conduct bounding overwatch. In order to accomplish this, he is doing a large overhaul of the existing systems and strategies Y2XXL, and refactoring a lot of the existing code to allow for a more dynamic and robust system to be in place for these more complex behaviors (as well as for future planned AI behaviors).
—
That’s it for this month, thank you to everyone who read the devblog!
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