crossed

The darkness looks pretty awesome now! (on the video, I couldn't check it in game yet) 
Now, if only we could upgrade our cars with bullbars so hitting one zombie wouldn't instantly destroy our headlights

Hey everyone, lots to get through today soooo…
PUBLIC BUILD 40 PATCHED
We’ve just patched Build 40, which is now up to version 40.36. Primary improvements you’ll notice are:
Local text chat now audible/legible from a distance, and no longer obscured. Weather period frequency throughout the whole year increased, and more heavy weather. Car alarms now attract zeds again. Chat now logged on server (format will be improved later) Less getting wet in inappropriate places There’s a fair amount of other stuff too though, details on which can be found here on the forum.
NEXT 40 PATCH: BETTER NIGHTS
One of the biggest problems with Build 40 on release was that the new time of day, and time of year, shaders didn’t play very nicely with the lighting system. Flashlights, internal lighting and vehicle headlights all suddenly look very washed out. Players who venture out in the dark weren’t having as much fun as usual.
As such, Turbo has been working on an improvement that we want to get into the current public version before he moves fully into Build 41. Vids of this can be seen below.

We hope you agree that it looks far, far better – and more than a little scarier to boot.
“In the above videos the ambient values have been changed along with the colours during dark periods (night/storms)” Turbo explains. “This fixes the headlights, flashlights etc and makes darkness look better in general.”
“Also seen below is some improved and indoor lighting during dark times. In the initial Build 40 release my shader overlay coloring messed it all up – so now the shader coloring is disabled when you’re indoors. This did come with the problem that when you’re looking outside you wouldn’t see darkness or weather effects, however, so I’m now using the mask cut-out I created for rain to overlay an external colored texture too.”

“Before we patch I will probably adjust storms a bit too though, as currently they lose a bit too much of their storm tint.”

BUILD 41
We’re transitioning the PZ coders over to the work that TEA have done on animations for Build 41, but in the mean-time guys like Zac and Grant are continuing to improve tools and, in the case of Grant, do some optimization of the anims codebase.
“I’m doing a lot of work on the new clothing tech at the moment” explains Zac. “Using AnimZed wearable bags like backpacks are now visible on the character, and characters can equip custom clothing meshes on top of the base rig.”
“This allows outfits such as baggy jeans, coats, dresses, hoodies, jump-suits, and so on and parts of the base mesh can be now be masked out to prevent clipping and/or overdraw. When this gets to the modders then it’d be fairly simple to even do something like replace a character’s hand with a pirate’s hook or something.”
“It’s all customized for each clothing item, using the paper-doll UI inside the new ClothingItem Editor. There’s also random tints for more variety in the clothing too.”

(please note: on the spot turning animations are not in the build yet but will be before release!)
WATER STUFF
Regular Thursdoiders will know that Yuri is currently working on the improved appearance of water for Build 41. Below you’ll find what it looks like currently, but here’s a note on what to look out for:
A ripple effect has been added to the water, that will let players to see the direction and speed of the wind added to the game in Build 40 on the water’s surface. The water shader now accepts data for flow direction and speed for each tile in the map, so rivers are now more realistic. In the video you can see how the water flows more slowly near the bank, and also how the flow of water smoothly changes its direction along the river. Three water ‘visual quality’ options have been added. There is now a high and low quality option for both dynamic water and static water. Low quality dynamic water puts a very small load on the GPU, so it should be okay on most PCs.
You can also see Yuri playing around with the different debug values for this system here.
PUBLIC CONTROLLER BUILD TEST

We’re currently running a beta for the work that Stas has recently been doing on gamepad controller improvements, and folk have been contributing some absolutely brilliant feedback.
If you enjoy playing PZ with a pad want to join in, and earn yourself a FREE PZ CODE, then simply visit this thread, install the controllers beta, play for a few hours and answer the ten questions we’ve provided.
This morning we released a new version of the Controllers build using your feedback, and Stas has quashed many of the bugs that were irking people. So now is a great time to join in.
Please note that currently only PC players can run the build, and also that the joypad back-end system, configuration and bindings have been completely rewritten from the ground up. In the process some aspects of the controls and default bindings have been changed in the rewriting process – if you have any issues with the default bindings and behaviours of the controls we’d like to hear about it.
NEW DENVER UPDATED – NOW SLOCAN LAKE
A quick shout out for Xeonyx, the creator of the wonderful map mod New Denver – which has recently been renamed as Slocan Lake. Jamie is now making Challenge maps for the main game, the first of which will likely appear in Build 41 at this point, but wanted to bring his most famous mod creation up to date.
The new version of Slocan Lake now has vehicle spawns and lootable maps, and no longer covers up areas of the vanilla zomboid map. You can find it here.

“With the additions of the towns of Silverton and Rosebery,” explains Xeonyx, “I felt it necessary to change the name of the map mod to Slocan Lake BC to better reflect the region the map takes place in, and not just the first town that was completed.”
“Players can now choose to start in one of the three towns as opposed to just New Denver, and with vehicles being added it makes for easier travel between places. I’ve also added forage zones to let players to gather supplies, even when they’re kilometers deep in the bush.”
“Traveling players will find the map no longer covers parts of the vanilla map (Farmlands, Rosewood Prison etc) and has been pushed South. So if you find a road going South off the highway here, this will take you to New Denver.”
“I’ve also added lootable maps to the mod, so you have maps of Silverton, New Denver, Rosebery, Full Region Map and Golf Course Cards out there to find. I also added in the real world street names on the town maps for players wanting to better navigate, and clearly to underline how the map mod is a 1:1 scale recreation of the real life region where I live.”

This week’s pile-up from Maris. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all our American survivors!

Hi there! 5 update is here. Most important bugs were resolved. Change list:
Fixed: Game options window doesn't resize correctly when changing resolution Fixed: Char turns away when stops moving Fixed: Game closes on entering a driver's seat in a vehicle Fixed: Not possible to play with controller from the get-go; must go via F1 Fixed: move and aim actions inverted by Y axis. Fixed: Not possible to change any Controller settings using controller

will try thank you. maybe with max settings + your advice = game look improve. thanks
MUCH good news for water. now we need AJ's reverse osmosis filter for PZ.

Maybe you could start with 0 but get a +1% immunity with every scratch (inflicted by a zombie, obviously) you survived as your immune system develops a resistance. 
You'd most likely die from the scratches before you reach 5%, but there would be a chance to develop full immunity and become an absolute legend

Maybe you could start with 0 but get a +1% immunity with every scratch (inflicted by a zombie, obviously) you survived as your immune system develops a resistance. 
You'd most likely die from the scratches before you reach 5%, but there would be a chance to develop full immunity and become an absolute legend

IWBUMS 40.36

BALANCE

Rain-barrel context-menu tooltip displays warning if the barrel contains tainted water.
 
FIXES
 
Fixed exception in IsoRegionWorker.loadSaveMap() with Core.noSave=true.
Fixed RainParticle.update() not setting lastIntensity.
Fixed exception in isoRegion.DataChunk.load()
Fixed time disconnected from a server counting towards zombification.
Fixed it being possible to trap the char in a car placed between a wall / car
Fixed calculation of vehicle container capacity (and other things) based on condition.
Fixed vehicle debug repair command not updating container capacity in singleplayer or on the server.
Fixed vehicle trunk capacity not changing when repaired in singleplayer.
Fixed repairing vehicle parts not updating some stuff on the server
Fixed expanded vehicle bounds blocking splitscreen players. 
Fixed vehicle exits appearing blocked that aren't in switch-seat UI.
Fixed empty savefile names and names starting/ending with "." being allowed.
Fixed two color options applying when chosen instead of when the Accept or Apply buttons are clicked.
Fixed initial value of the Personal Text Color option.
Fixed position of the Personal Text Color color-picker.

I think it's not necessary because you already have a good opportunity to do it (imho). How I do it: press radial menu button (share for ps controller and back for xbox as I remember), move right stick to zoom in or zoom out. The game will zoom when you release the button. To do it fast just keep holding right stick in corresponding direction (zoom in or zoom out) and press the radial menu button as much as you need. 
 
If you don't enjoy zoom still then tell me.

I actually do it that way you describe and it works. However it forces me to take my left thump off the left stick which means the character stops moving (read: fleeing). As zooming is not part of the characters actions but for our sake only it should be independent so to say.
I really prefer rt + rb or something along that line for zoom. And thanks for the work you put in!

So they need to upgrade everything else to match the pretty water.
Problem solved!

Player-made roofs are currently not working properly and let the rain through so that could affect your dampness moodle. 
 
Windchill happens when the temperature drops low and / or your character is not wearing appropriate clothing. You can start by dressing up  there are padded jackets and pants in game now for that purpose. I'd also recommend getting a digital watch because it tells you what temperature it is so you can dress properly with more ease.

Try turning off post processing, it makes the game look a little less "washed out", maybe it's easier on your eyes. And set the frame rate cap to (at least) 60 if it's lower, low frame rate can make your eyes hurt too.
I also think the game looks fine, it's never going to have AAA graphics.
The only thing I'd like to see is proper (dynamic) shadows, both for characters and for the environment, but I don't think that's happening..

I'm a keyboard+mouse player, just played a couple hours using my controller to help with the testing, so take it with a grain of salt  
 
1. What controller are you using?
Xbox 360
 
2. Does the controller work?
Yep
 
3. Please check out the new gamepad customization menu in the Options. Does it work, and does it make sense? Is it relevant to the pad you’re using? How could it be improved?
It works for the most part.
It seems some buttons have functions you cannot change, like 'A' is open door /enter vehicle. If you rebind A to melee for example you'll still have to use A to open a door and your character will do a melee attack every time you open a door. 
Also, it could say above the drop down menus what button is that you're actually changing, it's fairly obvious as it is right now, but you never know...
 
4.How does your gamepad feel in-game? Is there anything missing, and has anything changed that you’re used to playing with?
Aiming (both for objects to interact with and for zombies) felt a bit wonky to be honest, it's possible that some problems are on my end, not sure, see point 8. for details. 
The only thing I'm missing so far is a "loot all / transfer all" button, for convenience's sake.
 
5.How would you like your gamepad play further improved?
Pressing and holding buttons for different fuctions would be nice, like holding E on the keyboard to climb through windows.
Playing with a mouse I'm using zoom all the time, it's would be nice if you could just bind zoom in and zoom out to buttons (the triggers maybe)
 
6.Do you play in split-screen? If so, how is this beta playing?
No, don't play split screen.
 
7. In the current game when you use inventory and character windows, your survivor on-screen can still move and perform some actions. If we were to forbid this, and have you either controller as your survivor OR having you navigate the UI, how would you feel? How would this change your playing style?
I like to keep my health tab up when my character is seriously injured to keep an eye on it, being able to look around while dumping everything from your backpack into your trunk for example is really helpful obviously, and being able to walk around picking up and dropping thing while the crafting or vehicle tabs are up is pretty convinient too. I'd prefer to keep things as they are now, but changing it wouldn't ruin the game... Not being able to look around while looting would be a bit of a game changer I guess.
 
edit: I just read back in this thread to see what others pointed out and not being able to interact with your inventory while driving or quickly equip a weapon while walking away from zombies would be pretty horrible actually, so I changed my mind to a "please no" on this one  
 
8. What other gamepad bugs or weirdness have you noticed in this build?
My character sometimes seemed to turn into random directions when I stopped walking. I walked up to a cupboard to loot it and instead of stopping in front of the cupboard facing it, my character turned away from it when I stopped. Same when I walk up to a zombie to kill it, once I'm in melee reach I stop and press the attack button and sometimes my guy would swing in a random direction, NOT in the direction I was walking (towards the zombie).
Maybe it's a deadzone issue (or the lack of dead zone), as I'm releasing the stick I accidentally move it in another direction a little bit and that makes the character turn. Just a guess though, I don't have this problem with other games.
 
The other thing is that I was having a really hard time trying to select the object I wanted to interact with. The highlighted object is never the one in front of my character. I can't just face a door and open it, I have to stand in some weird angle or even face away from it to be able to open it. Some examples:
Trying to open the window here and the small cupboard on the wall gets highlighted
screenshot 1
Having to stand further away and face away from the counter to get it highlighted
screenshot 2
It's the same with opening doors, jumping fences, with every object basically, not just occasionally.
 
Also the game drops me out to the main menu every time I try to enter a car.
 
Also, when you press the interact button it shows you the list of thing you can do (carpentry, remove grass, etc..), but if there's nothing you can interact with it doesn't show you anything, while some buttons are blocked because you're technically in the 'interact' menu. Basicly you can accidentally block some of your buttons and actiions by pressing X, with no visual indications that they're blocked because you're in the interact menu. Not a likely scenario but it can happen I guess, it would help if you wouldn't go into an invisibe interact menu at all if ther'es nothing to interact with.
 
9.This build also contains a java lwjgl upgrade. Have you noticed any changes in game performance and stability, especially at higher resolutions?
Yes, I'm using 1920x1200, I was having stuttering and "random slowdown" problems with the latest stable build, they seems to be gone in this build. I cannot test the performance while driving due to the bug with vehicles I mentioned.
 
10.What's the Number 1 most important issue that you'd like to see resolved in the next update to this beta?
Being hard to highlight/ interact with the object I want is the most annoying problem to me.  

Try turning off post processing, it makes the game look a little less "washed out", maybe it's easier on your eyes. And set the frame rate cap to (at least) 60 if it's lower, low frame rate can make your eyes hurt too.
I also think the game looks fine, it's never going to have AAA graphics.
The only thing I'd like to see is proper (dynamic) shadows, both for characters and for the environment, but I don't think that's happening..

This will be fixed in the IWBUMS patch update we'll be releasing in the next few hours

There was a post already on the forums about this: