martingee

Accessories (or attachments as I call them) are planned. We're still discussing to what extent they'll be implemented so any suggestions, as always, are welcome!

Trailers cause a problem because they introduce articulation to the physics system, in this case it would be a ball joint or at the very least a hinged joint. Were we using Unity, Unreal or some other commercial game engine then these things are already included and yet still cause a lot of headaches even though they're been used "out of the box." I don't think it's a "never" but certainly at the moment we have other nuts to crack before we get onto something like this.

http://kyweathercenter.com/?p=1816 just saying... Although the pictures weren't showing when I last looked.

Iirc vehicles will be optional so in theory you'll be able play without them been spawned but also benefit from the overall optimisations that's been added.

For what it's worth, there is a meteorological detachment/unit actually based in the real Fort Knox.

We don't have any "standards" per se and vehicles as a whole are still WIP so our process for getting them into game and how they setup/interact with code is still been refined and will likely change. With that been said here's a wireframe of the NormalCar along with its UV png The NormalCar has 699 tri's without wheels. When I've modeled the vehicles I've aimed for as lower tri count as possible whilst still maintaining a good shape and silhouette, so some are a little higher in tri count than the NormalCar (the ambulance has 861 tri's for example).

Initially the Jeep won't have a tyre like the screengrab, that was my mockup in 3ds max. Ultimately it should have a tyre but will require some code tweaks so that you can use it, definitely planned though. Whilst I didn't initially make the Jeep with the other military vehicles I think I did see some camouflaged army jeeps similar to this Jeep during my research. I don't think it would look out of place to have a military version once we include the military.

Coincidentally when I originally did the Ambulance texture you'll notice the Star of Life is not the one you find on Ambulances, it's a basic approximation. After the Red Cross controversy I was acutely aware of not infringing on copyright, which in this case is held by the US government. I know it appears in quite a lot of other games and the US government don't seem to mind (unlike the Red Cross) but I decided to not take the chance. So far no one's pointed out it's not "right" .

Cars currently look a bit too big atm, I'm not sure on the specifics of "why" but the new characters in the anim build are also slightly bigger and more in proportion with the cars. Obviously this doesn't help with regards the garage doors but once everything is in and working properly with each other, we can look at reducing the rendered vehicle and character sprites and hopfully (fingers crossed) get them to work with garages as a whole.

Capacity is set the way it is for gameplay balance. I know what you're saying but vehicles would be quite OP and/or become too essential. That's not to say the numbers won't get tweaked if it's felt they don't carry enough but it's one of the examples where gameplay trumps realism, which has been one of the mantras of PZ development.

As part of the animation update there will be support for loading skinned and static objects, that's one of the things Mark from Bitaboon has been working on. How exactly that will present itself and the full list of file types (.x files and fbx will be) I'm not sure, as I've not tested it yet but it is in the works.

Well yes, the possibility of lag is a real issue and one the team are constantly working to avoid and improve (but is rarely credited for). It's easier for me to model this stuff as I go along, as opposed to going back and doing them and if, for whatever reason, interiors don't make an appearance, they can be easily removed from the model.

The initial mesh and UV's I passed to Mash didn't contain an engine but subsequently I have updated the models with an engine compartment so that's what you're probably seeing. I have an engine texture and new UV's I'll pass onto Mash, it's not a big job but just needs re-exporting some of the textures. It's on my list to do. The hope is to have trunks, hoods and doors open but we need few things doing before they're implemented. It won't be any time soon (like next week) but it's something that's planned.

I'll try and answer some of the ones I have insight on but be aware I'm not privy to all the discussion that goes on around features and design! Box trucks and eighteen-wheelers -in a previous Thursdoid we previewed a WIP Fire Engine which is part of a larger pool of WIP vehicles. Balance is key if these larger vehicles were to be introduced, once we're happy with how the current crop of vehicles work and are integrated into the base game, the guys can make a judgement call on how larger, potentially over powered, trucks et al could be added. Tanks and military vehicles -I will say straight away that I have not yet modelled a tank but there are some WIP military vehicles. Like with trucks, military vehicles have the ability to be game breaking and change the tone of PZ if they're introduced willy nilly. The Military are an important part of PZ lore so military vehicles will make an appearance at some point, I'm just not sure to what extent. Motorcycles/Bicycles - I'll answer these two together. It would be great to add motorcycles and bikes however they introduce a side of things we've yet to tackle which is attaching player characters to vehicles and have them animate. At the moment, when a player gets into a car their model vanishes, this would look all wrong with bikes and motorbikes and also be visually inaccurate. You also have the quandary of dealing with the player potentially getting knocked/falling off the bike. It opens a can of worms that can't be tackled until the anim system is working. Vehicle deformation -I don't know how "expensive" vehicle deformation would be in the PZ engine, my gut feeling would be "high" but I'm no coder . From a model point of view I've tried to keep the models as low poly as I could whilst still trying to give the cars decent and distinctive shapes, I'm not sure they have enough poly's in them to start deforming them and still have them look ok. We could try but I think for the time being, our efforts are best directed elsewhere imo. Construction vehicles -Similar points to box trucks etc. I did look at construction vehicles when I was looking for ideas, they have a couple of challenges (tracks, moving parts), perhaps one for later down the line when we have other things sorted. Armored cars -like The Presidents car "The Beast" or do you mean player made, reinforced cars? (or both!?) I haven't modelled a limousine as I've been concentrating on more "everyday" cars but I did wonder about something like that but that might be for later. Again I think the plan is to have the ability to modify your car with suitable car parts (last weeks Thursdoid) but to also add zombie protection stuff at a later date. That needs to be worked out once people are happy with the base mechanic stuff.

Well, like most things, opening doors, trunks etc will be possible it's just how far up the priority list it is. Everything takes time to do, I'm just not sure how time consuming this is and as we've seen we're cracking on with visible damage, tying the upkeep and maintenance into the game etc as well other aspects of the game. It's definitely a conversation we need to have since things are never straight forward

When I've been making the vehicles they've all got interiors including engine compartments and trunks where applicable. Doors, hoods and trunks have been modelled so the can open. However I'm not sure when we'll implement this as a few things need to be "lined up" like animations for it to be visually correct, and I have no idea regarding what needs to be done code side for it to work..

This is the double edge sword we tread. If we mention anything about it, other than its released, we get lambasted for talking about "nothing". If we don't mention that work continues, people get sad or suspicious. You can be rest assured work continues on the new animations which are intrinsically linked to new clothes and weapons. Hopefully when that build goes into testing everyone's wait won't be a disappointment!

Please bear in mind this is a first pass on cars both coding wise and art/design. We have other vehicles in different stages of WIP and once we've got the first, core set of vehicles working fine, in regards to code and game design, we can look to expand the roster. What I would say is that we're not aiming for GTA levels of variety, vehicles are one of the main features on the way to v1.0 but there are other aspects that need looking at (and I'm don't just mean dragons!) That been said, suggestions are always welcome! The vehicles suggested here and in other threads have helped confirm the research I've done when looking at the types of cars etc that would have been a common sight around this the time of PZ. Hopefully soon I'll be able to post some screen grabs either on the forums or maybe one of the mondoids.

Ah yes, saw them, good work! Pretty much all the ones you've done were reference for the models. Great minds think alike!

Well I did say "gameplay challenges". A truck/lorry could be way too powerful so some thought needs to go into how something like this is implemented. Variation in models and textures would be good and as with a lot of PZ, this may be left up to the community mod in. But again, that's not really my decision. I also think spawn distribution, rarety etc needs balancing so not so many certain types get spawned. I think RJ may be looking at that atm.

Apart from the SUV and Taxi, the other type of vehicles suggested bring with them some technical and gameplay challenges. Probably not insurmountable (although I'm not a programmer!) but since we've not currently got the core set of vehicles fully functional it'll be a while before we see any new vehicles. As mentioned I do have the taxi modelled, it is essentially the NormalCar with "roof stuff", and there are some WIP military vehicles and a few other WIP models. If only I could post some screen shots

I don't think we'll see any Indiana in vanilla PZ

Or something a low budget, fast food franchise would buy.

I have a Taxi model done, it's essentially a NormalCar with a taxi sign and advert board on the roof. It needs Mash to do her texturing magic but it'll be for a future update, we've got a core set of vehicles that need tieing into the game properly. Once that's done we can take stock and decide what other vehicles we want to add. There are some other vehicles already in a WIP state but we need to weigh game balance, lore, engine performance etc. before they get finalised.

Bicycles, motorbikes and indeed anything that has the character visible on/in the vehicle open up a can of worms regarding animation and physics that we currently can't accommodate. That's not to say we won't get around to them at a later date but we need a few things in place before we can do them; namely stable and robust vehicle physic as well as the new animation system. Even then they'll need some attention to work properly.