Steam Release - 08th Nov 2013 - Version 2.9.9.17 (0011)

[RobertJohnson]

 

So the age of the strewberry has finally come to an end.  Words fail me. 

Romain's mission in life is to ruin everything.

 

 

And to be honest, I'm quite good at it.

 

Rotten soup, no more infinite ammo....

[Cl0nec0mmand0]

 

God this game is so horrible!  Slow updates!  No fun!

 

KIDDING!  I LOVE THIS GAME!   .  It's the only game that makes me laugh, cry, smile, and frown.  I have all feels for the developers and their struggle to make the game smooth and polished, and all the joy for getting to be part of the community that experiences it.

 

I'm very happy to see it on Steam now also.  When NPCs do come, this game is going to completely ruin my social life.  And you know what...

 

...I'm okay with that.

same for me... not that i ever had a social life

 

whats a social life?

 

 

So the age of the strewberry has finally come to an end.  Words fail me. 

Romain's mission in life is to ruin everything.

 

And to be honest, I'm quite good at it.

 

Rotten soup, no more infinite ammo....

i usually edit food to make it last longer sue me and make axes take longer to break because i think axes should have a lower chance of breaking so i can counter your unfair with my almost no knowledge of code

[EnigmaGrey]

Once again, this thread is only for upcoming features, as decreed in the initial post.

[beelees]

Social life...  It's for people without Project Zomboid.  I feel bad for those people.  !

[RobertJohnson]

 

• Added a bindable key to display the FPS in top left corner (default key is "k").

 

 

[Suomiboi]

Will sledgehammers be two handed too? Would be a natural add with the axe and bat. Oh and the golf club too. Damn now I'm sounding demading... sry Those are some great addons btw! Great work RJ!

[RobertJohnson]

Nice suggest, I forgot the sledgehammer

[Vagrant]

Will sledgehammers be two handed too? Would be a natural add with the axe and bat. Oh and the golf club too. Damn now I'm sounding demading... sry Those are some great addons btw! Great work RJ!

 

Speaking of Golf Club, they are seriously over-wheighted at 4 points per club.

 

They should be 1 or 1.5, but not 4. Heck, even Axe weight at 2.5.

[beelees]

 

Will sledgehammers be two handed too? Would be a natural add with the axe and bat. Oh and the golf club too. Damn now I'm sounding demading... sry Those are some great addons btw! Great work RJ!

 

Speaking of Golf Club, they are seriously over-wheighted at 4 points per club.

 

They should be 1 or 1.5, but not 4. Heck, even Axe weight at 2.5.

 

I agree.  I can handle a golf club in real life better than a fire axe.  I was noticing that on my play through yesterday, it was darn heavy, so I opted for a frying pan instead.

[EnigmaGrey]

Weight isn't reflective of the actual weight of an object; it includes encumbrance of storing it within an inventory.

[RobertJohnson]

Fixed the gold club weight, and added it and sledgehammer as 2 handed weapon

[Shivster]

Dang that was fast   So im just guessing 2 handed weapons are going to prevent me from equipping a bag in my off hand. I mean losing the ability to carry 2 bags is a big penalty so whats the benefits of a 2 handed weapons.

[Tango]

Dang that was fast   So im just guessing 2 handed weapons are going to prevent me from equipping a bag in my off hand. I mean losing the ability to carry 2 bags is a big penalty so whats the benefits of a 2 handed weapons.

 

I believe you can use a 2 handed weapon in 1 hand but with an endurance penalty, meaning you can still equip a second bag.

[Cl0nec0mmand0]

 

Dang that was fast   So im just guessing 2 handed weapons are going to prevent me from equipping a bag in my off hand. I mean losing the ability to carry 2 bags is a big penalty so whats the benefits of a 2 handed weapons.

 

I believe you can use a 2 handed weapon in 1 hand but with an endurance penalty, meaning you can still equip a second bag.

 

most 2 handed things will be to heavy to use with 1 hand ie axe or sledgehammer plus you use 2 hands in game anyway to swing them

[Waib]

2 handed!?

 

you should be able to dual weild sledgehammers and just helicopter around the map destroying everything in your path

 

lol jk some good updates there

 

imo golf club should be very powerful, especially on the down swing, but should break very fast. hit the zombie with the shaft by accident and the club would probably be broken

[lemmy101]

Info on next interim build: 

 

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/2091-interim-steam-beta-release-07-oct-2013-interim-build/

[Doffeh]

Bunch of new sounds from awesome NJ Apostol !

 

Audio feedback.

(pun intended, ha ha) ..

 

TL;DR: I put some stuff in bold

I assume the new sounds to be a step away from placeholders and the first step towards decent sound in Zomboid, so I've held back until now actually!

First of all, vast improvement from previous version and overal a step away from placeholders and extremely varying levels of quality, both in terms of actual (percieved) quality and file (sample rates, formats, etc). They're also all interleaved stereo files, some of the old ones are still mono. Of course, when projecting sound from a source in-game, this isn't cruical, but you can always project a stereo file from a singular direction should you chose to, but once a file IS mono, it doesn't matter if you pan it out - it's the same god damn audio so you won't get any impression of width. So you want to have the option. Regardless, all sound files within the game should naturally be on the same level of (at least) technical quality. So my impression is that it's "done" the right way.

HOWEVER, if it's recorded the right way is an other matter, I'm sure NJ-Apostol is no amateur, but listening through the files I actually percieved no feeling of width, to such an extent that I wonder if these were infact stereo recordings at all! Recording a sound effect in mono (practical or actual) and producing a stereo file seems to me to be a bit of a waste. Of course, I can understand that budget limits the recorder to avoid A-B pattern stereo recordings - but IF able, I think any future new sounds in Zomboid deserve more width to them, especially when/if ambience gets reworked. An other aspect is that while 44100 is a decent sample rate for the finished exported sound product, there's little or no reason not to record at a higher samplerate if you can. People won't really notice a difference though, I think one of the old sounds has a sample rate of something like 11000-something, which is witty because it still works, no one minds!

Some observations:

 

• The overal volume output between sound "groups" (ie; female zombies, splat, male zombies) are good within a given group, but between groups they need to be smoothed out.

  This in particular applies to the difference between male and female zombie groans. One COULD argue that perhaps the male voice contains more energy, but let's savor that discussion for an other day and let's just say the difference is too significant. Pretty sure girl zombies can groan with some amounts of low frequency anyway, they don't all have to just hiss and squeek! The audio ouput (volume) should be adjusted accordingly assuming the devs don't want to apply anything themselves (they should though!). Regardless it's convinient to have relatively comperative level of output between files, although whenever you're dealing with voice or anything mimicking it, this is difficult.

 

• PZ_FootSteps_Concrete_02.wav and 02, does not sound too much like footsteps on concrete;

  It's partially because, some of them are too "raspy" (02 and 03) maybe it's fine because zombies drag their feet - although it might not be ideal for the player character.

  However, applying to ALL of the footsteps files - it's a byproduct of the file having no leeway before playing, thus the first initial transients are clipped by the processing playing it (be it VLC, quicktime or whatever, and probably Zomboid). Usually this is fine, as when you're working with audio your DAW takes care of that and I'm sure there's ways to deal with it from a programming standpoint as well - but if simply played as a sound in-game the same effect might take place and you end up with footsteps that sound minecraft-esque low-fi and not at all "hard" like they should on concrete. Make note that ALL of the other new audio files DO have some leeway infront of them before actual sound. You're working with 44100 samples a second so even less than a milisecond actually helps mitigate this issue. I've had this issue before though, as footstep sounds need to be short and quick, and I'm sure it's a potential easy-fix for the programming side.

 

• PZ_HeadSmash_01 and 02 sound too "wet", "moist" or "mushy". Heads have bone in them.

  A bit morbid and I must confess I don't know what smashing someones head sounds like, but I think the old sounds splat1 and splat2, while poor in terms of quality and obvious in terms of origin, had a certain charm to them. Regardless, these news ones are very "mushy" in their character, where was the old ones were more crisp. A bit of bone in there might make it better. I did a quick google to fetch an example of what I think we could be better off having; http://youtu.be/i5ufgkJ-uVE?t=2m18s (from the movie drive, and perhaps a bit brutal and not suitable to the faint of heart.)

  An other issue is that 02 contains an initial impact noise, 01 doesn't. Perhaps this was intended to give the programmer options. Obviously a combined impact + smash noise creates the best result; but perhaps you don't have time to make an impact noise for every impact item (weapons) and thus need a generic one in addition to blunt and stab - and indeed PZ_HeadStab_02 suggests that's the intention, but perhaps relabel 02 to avoid it being mixed up as generic as it contains a very clear "whiff" sound and (relatively) high pitched whack sound. Both of the headsmash files contain sound from the impact item, but it's very prominent in 02.

  Perhaps it would just be better and easier to have the "whack" noise and "smash" nosie played to the player clearly seperated seeing as how the smashes are the killing blows anyway, and the whack noise should always be played when you hit a zombie, regardless - and then perhaps a "whiff/swing" noise should always be played, regardless of if you hit, kill or miss a zombie.

 

• The fact that zombie death sounds are compound sounds is apparent and obvious to the player

  Obviously it is preferable that one zombie does indeed sound like one zombie. In almost all of the zombie death sounds (example; PZ_MaleDeath_03 or PZ_MaleDeath_07) it's apparent to the listener and player that there are two "parts" to the sound, two parts which can be easily be percieved and distinguished from each other and thus percieved as the sound of two zombies.

  When creating sound effects the actual sound can sometimes be composed of many, many recordings, and perhaps the goal here of the death noises is to distinguish them between regular zombie groans - this is good, even if it's a cheesy "last exhale" kind of thing, and regardless the impression is highly subjective, but in most of them the player could get the impression of it being the sound of "two" zombies. It's nit picking to some regard, would anyone noticed in the thick of a zombie horde? Well, no - but it could be clearly noticable and even annoying if you're hitting a single zombie in a house, it could leave the player confused enough to think there are more in the house, which doesn't make any sense if there was indeed just one zombie, because one zombie wouldn't sound like two zombies now would it? One percieved source of audio should be projected as such.

   

• PZ_MaleZombie_08.wav is too boomy and too long, PZ_MaleZombie_06.wav is too long, a few of the PZ_FemaleZombie sounds as well.

  In particular when compared to the old sounds, these are significantly longer when it comes to duration. This could present itself as a problem when a groaning horde comes along. Sure, some zombie groans are indeed long, and perhaps the longer groans are not at all intended to be used from the same general "pool" as the rest. However, if they're intended for special cases in-game; then the pool is limited to 3-5 generic groans between genders, which is actually quite few considering the amount of zombies you could have on-screen at any given moment. It's worth noting that you only need to play a few of these at the same time before clipping occours and something needs to be done to limit and reduce the volume output much sooner than with the old sounds. This again, because the volume of the PZ_MaleZombie group is significantly louder and contains more energy over a wider frequency range. I'm sure Lemmy has an easy time adjusting volume output if the amount of zombie groans become too many - but simply playing the same voice many times doesn't at all make it sound like a choir, so a bigger pool of lower output sounds for horde encounters would certainly be ideal.

  PZ_MaleZombie_08.wav in particular seems to have a bit too much bass to it. It's a bit boomy. The first second in particular. Almost as if there's a bit of air hitting the microphone membrane or (more likely) as if it's just been given a bit too much EQ, be it actively or indirectly by whatever effects are used in the process of making a zombie groan. Most home setups and headsets add a little bass these days and I imagine that if this file is pulled randomly to be played at the same time with itself or an other of the more bassy groans (highly probably given its length and the fact that there's just 8 files to chose from) you could get way too much wall-shake from a single pair of zombies....

 

 

As I wrote first though, it's all still improvements and Zomboid sure does need it. A lot of the small fine details of foley often go over-looked but they're subconciously critical and vital to make the game come across as a finished and decent product. Play one of the latest battlefields for instance and just think -only- about the sound, now sure, the budget isn't comperable, but have you actually thought about how amazing the soundwork in some of the triple A FPS'es are?

 

And I don't mean to step on anyone's toes here, but certain sounds in zomboid like the rain ambience and ambience in general is quite bad and very much coming across like placeholders that no-one had the time to replace or think about yet. What I'm talking about is stuff like that ambientOutsideDayWoods.ogg clearly has distant traffic noise (as if from a motorway in the far distance) and rain.ogg clearly records rain hitting a water-surface. Stuff like that doesn't work when you're walking around in a car-free zombie apocalypse and there's no god-damn pond anywhere near and those two are played many many times on each and every play session. Even my girlfriend non-audio nerd questioned some of it when she watched me play some Zomboid.

Yes. Yeeees.. I realize, there's more pressing issues, but there's a lot of room for audio work in Zomboid, and some of it is necessary for Zomboid not to come across as a half-assed product and I think it's wise to not consider all of it a finishing touch. It might not be as glamorous as Beaver's work, but it sure plays a part. I hope that sometime in the future of Zomboid, you can step into a relatively empty warehouse, and actually hear footsteps reverb and stuff. That'd be nice.

 

Kind of long post this. And my first since the new forums..

[RobertJohnson]

Wow, big details here

 

Well, I agree on some things you said, I'll contact Apostol to told him that, to see what he think about it, you're pretty insane when it comes to sounds, eh ? You have to met my bass player....

[Manuls]

@Doffeh: You are right.

 

I thought about the same stuff as i am recording some sounds for Robomats lockpicking mod at the moment.

 

I thought about eq'ing them to fit the current style. Which for me sounded like the grafics looked, charming and lowfi.

 

It would be helpful if there was some sort of standard here. I think there are  3 factors:

 

-Quality

-Style

-Size

I think the biggest part is that the sounds fit into the universe. And the "universe" is a lowfi comiclike looking(no criticism here) simulation.

 

So obviously bleeps and beeps are a deal breaker when it comes to immersion.

Absolute hifi crisp sounds could work as i love crisp sounds but could be also a dealbreaker because of the audio/visual discrepancy.

So my objective side wants some standardised filtered sounds that are like "smaller" version of the reality, a little less crisp a little bit filed off.

 

My subjective side wants some very realistic sounds to make up for the graphics(i really like the graphics) to get more out of this oppressive atmosphere.

 

I really am constantly on the edge while playing this game. And thinking about a very realistic sounddesign to support that feeling even more would be fantastic.

 

To the size: i think the game should still be managable to be downloaded in a bearable time. So some almost lossless compressed 44.1k/16Bit sounds wouldnt go beyond the scope in my opinion.

 

Additionally i love dynamic soundengines, but i think that is far off the radar right now.

 

Ps.: My offer helping with sounds still stand

 

Have a nice evening.

Manuel

[Doffeh]

Oh yeah I can totally understand what you're saying when it comes to your objective idea of a suitable sound universe. It's actually somewhat dangerous to go for realism as you could end up coming up short and falling in the whole reality gap thing, where a more comicsy kind of sound universe would've been better.

 

That said though I think the new zombie sounds are quite good and in no danger of it, and I didn't mean to criticise in my previous post, just give some feedback and it's all highly subjective anyway. I would say they rival or surpass the zombies in The Walking dead any day! And it's not like making zombie groans comes without challenges, say you want to make a skull crushing sound, go bash a melon, it's a fairly easy thing, but zombie voice would end up in a mix up of old school foley, voice acting and DSP, which I know I'd certainly have a hard time with.

 

As for the size, most of the sounds are quite short and thus take up very little space. The new sounds, being in 44.1k/16 (with a couple being 22.05k, which is fair - after all, if there's no frequency information above 10k then, why not cut it in half, saves space.. Although it was a female zombie groan, I should've noted something about that in the first post but I suppose I overlooked that!) still only take up about 7mb. Although this could all change drastically when more ambience goes in.

But yeah, dynamic sound would be nice - and out of reach in some sense, but it doesn't have to be that dynamic. It wouldn't be very difficult nor time consuming from a programming standpoint to implement a form of compression on something mundane as say, character punches/swings in which you would simply increase the gain on a compression setting in addition to increasing volume as a character grew stronger - making punches sound harder and louder as you progress. It's a cheesy example, I know.

In certain cases it will actually speed up the process though. Things like footsteps will surely have to be played quicker as a character walks or runs quicker, you could mix some random offsets and delay into that on the same soundset and thus actually create zombie footsteps/injured player footsteps, player walking footsteps and running footsteps sounds, all based on the same set of files which actually saves a whole lot more work than making unique sounds for everything, and I would imagine that's the plan. Infact, come to think of it, isn't the heart beat sound already dynamic as it plays at a speed based on the player character panic rating, or was it exhaustion rating? Well one of the two and not exactly game developement revolutions, but in my opinnion, very nice details.

I also understand if your definition of dynamic in this case revolves more around real time generated sound, using some frequency modulation and synthesis and such - and well.. Yeah.. That's more tricky.

[Manuls]

Ah no i also meant Samplebased + dsp(by sound engine). Like your reverb in a large hall.

But dynamic triggering eg your footsteps is a lowcost (and also already implemented? Heartbeat?) technique which gives great results.

And a limiter or some other gain controlling system for big hoards with many sounds is a must if they all have individual samples.

But thats opening up one too big construction site.

I mean they just started the graphics evolution!

Head on!

[Suomiboi]

@RJ I thought about the two hand weapons and noticed that one essential two hander is missing: shotgun! Now as always don't hurry with it. Just came to my mind as I browsed the change log here. It would be a great thing to make a larger difference between the pistol and the shotgun. Maybe even have it so that it can't be equipped on one hand (or have large accuracy minus on one hand)? Thoughts anyone?

 

EDIT: as I thought about this it could be done so that the sawn-off shotgun would be better on one hand than the regular but also better on two handed than on one. So the sawn-off would be an in between of pistol and shotgun with a wide spread.

 

And good work with the updates! Keep on going!

[Sammy]

Very nice work guys Was playing last night with this and it seems like it runs smoother?

[Morbid_Angel]

One thing I meant to say for a while now is when you close all curtains in your house it's almost impossible to see anything - is there perhaps an option to eventually (while power is still on) turn on the lights in a house? If that is maybe too much for the short term to put into the game, I'd like to request a way to make my guy stay in bed until I tell him to get up. For example, a menu that lets me select the amount of time the guy sleeps. Why I request this? When my sheets are all closed and my dude gets out of bed at 4:20 am or so, I simply can't do anything in the house anyways because I can't see shizniz. And if I fast forward, odds are my character gets bored etc so - please? ^^

[Walther]

One thing I meant to say for a while now is when you close all curtains in your house it's almost impossible to see anything - is there perhaps an option to eventually (while power is still on) turn on the lights in a house? If that is maybe too much for the short term to put into the game, I'd like to request a way to make my guy stay in bed until I tell him to get up. For example, a menu that lets me select the amount of time the guy sleeps. Why I request this? When my sheets are all closed and my dude gets out of bed at 4:20 am or so, I simply can't do anything in the house anyways because I can't see shizniz. And if I fast forward, odds are my character gets bored etc so - please? ^^

Have you ever tried a lightswitch?