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37 n’ Next


nasKo

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Hello! A public build release today, along with a general overview of where we’ll be at with different stuff in the coming weeks.

 

37 RELEASED

This morning we pushed Build 37.8 to Stable. This is predominantly an RJ build, apart from the Mash maps and some Yuri fixes, so our thanks to him keeping the wheel turning while work continues in our various other branches. It contains lots of fiddly longstanding fix stuff that can be read here, but the highlights run as follows:

 

  • Maps of urban locations within the Knox Event Exclusion Zone can be found in relevant towns, in particular spawning in gas stations. They look a bit like this.

rosewoodmap.png

  • You can make text and emblem markings on maps and share with friends and faction members in MP.
  • In SP you also run a chance of discovering pre-annotated maps that’ve been marked up by deceased fellow survivors. These are mainly found on zombies and can lead you to stashes of weapons, tools and general places of interest. Loot at these locations could be hidden in cupboards, crates, bags left on the floor or even hidden under the floorboards.
  • General improvements to cooking, cooking systems and food. Split screen co-op fixes. Gamepad fixes. Improved sleeping system for online servers who like to snooze. New forage UI to limit item build-up on the map. Portuguese Brazilian community translation by HiveFuse. Clearer moodle impact descriptions. New ‘version info’ box on main screen.

 

 

VEHICLES

The internal tests and updates of our new physics-enhanced vehicles continue, if you haven’t seen it then our latest vid (made by Mark.exe) can be seen here. The current focus is in fixing up what we have now so that it’s all in a state that could be considered for wider testing. We will need, after all, performance feedback from as many PC set ups as we can.

 

This week, then, Yuri had been looking at the build’s most glaring performance issues and glitches. There’s an oddly catastrophic slowdown that hits after twenty minutes of play that’s being looked at right now, for example, while vehicle and tree pop-in also needs addressing. Likewise frame-rate stutters seemingly tied to zooming. In recent days we’ve made good progress on reported (non-vehicular) crashes and garbage collection hang-ups, so we’ll keep on ticking off the list. Likewise, it’d be nice if we could solve some clipping and draw order issues.

 

As a general ‘where we’re at’ overview, right now we have pick-ups, station wagons, ambulances, sports cars, small cars and vans in-game (although they’re yet to have different handling stats). They spawn in relevant places, and according to the affluence/role of area on the Exclusion Zone map. They crash and roll, and they really, really attract zombies – potentially a little too much. They have working headlights and are generally found locked – although keys can be found on zombies or in houses. Every car has storage in the boot, and have a handy glove box too.

 

We’re also looking at two (subtle) different ways of colouring vehicle textures – so answers on a postcard if you can tell us your opinion of which if these vehicles fits in best with the PZ game world.

 

cars-lossless.png

 

What vehicles haven’t got is much ‘Zomboid’ gameplay tied to them right now – mechanic profession, maintenance, damage, player injury and other vital stuff isn’t in yet. Likewise they have no engine sound playing, the info panel UI is temporary and collision with zeds and survivors needs work. The focus right now, however, is getting their operation as glitch-free as possible – so all this will come in future weeks.

 

 

ANIMS

We mentioned it last week but now have an extra body on-board in TIS Towers, in the form of Mark – a man who comes with a wealth of games industry experience and battle-hardiness.

 

He’s going to be jumping into the trenches fairly imminently to help us sort out various other technical issues surrounding the new animation system, as well as tie up any other loose ends or missing bits that are holding back the release.

 

In the meantime he has been implementing Assimp as our default model and animation loader, this will allow models to be loaded in in a variety of common formats that will not only aid modders in being able to easily expand the game, but will hopefully unearth a few issues with the existing loader that have prevented the rotational root motion system from being finished off.

 

Mark’s experience in animation systems could then lead onto other improvements once everything is in-game, but we’ll leave expanding on that until we finally have the basic models in testing. In the mean-time it’s now clear that vehicles will release before animations, so we’re continuing the work required to let them make the best of each other.

 

Work in and around animations will provide some advantages to the vehicles once they land, such as the elimination of the old system of off-screen textures that are rendered every frame in 3D and drawn in place as sprites, being replaced with the game actually drawing the 3D models directly into the screen at the correct position in a more accurate ISO perspective. This will hopefully improve things such as zombie like vehicle collisions, and make multiple vehicles integrate into the scene together better.

 

 

IWBUMS NEXT

With the release of 37 work begins on the more general features and improvements for 38. Its overall contents are currently under discussion but the new map expansion is pretty much certain to be in 38, alongside the MP Discord integration. Hopefully Turbo’s devices code rewrite will also be ready in time, as well as some of the improvements it can provide.

 

 

MOD SPOTLIGHT

We ran an interview with prolific PZ modder Nolan the other week, but forgot to give it a Mondoid flag. Do check it out though, as he’s a very interesting chap.


This week’s last stand from Isnah81. 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 hereOur Discord is now open for chat and hijinks too. A general overview of the content of PZ builds past, in testing and upcoming can be found here.

 
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The olive car definitely fits the best. The other two are too dirty in some places to the point of being off-putting, and that color is far more likely to be seen on that car model than dark metallic blue

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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Right now definitely the green car fits better with the game, i think the dirt and roast its a nice concept, but it would be nice to see the green car with that ditry texture too so we can get a closer idea.

and i tottaly agree with Mr Root Beer  the final look of the cars is gonna be defined by the final look of the new 3D models.
(i need to practice more my english) 

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I'd almost make a wager that the screenshot with the cars has the green one placed in the back intentionally, almost as if the person taking it was trying to make it the less obvious choice and putting the other two in front to make sure they were given consideration as well.

 

The green car fits best though. Looks nearly perfect.

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13 hours ago, Mr Root Beer said:

I feel the exact car model depends on how it looks next to the new 3D models. Can we get an image of a few 3d characters next to the cars?

 

This!!

 

The Animations will change nearly everything I guess - how the game feels, how combat is fought and not last how the game will look like - (hopefully) lots more different clothes, weapons, bags on charakters, etcpp - so it would be important that the cars match with the future look of PZ

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11 minutes ago, Sky_Orc_Mm said:

These vehicles don't seem to have any shadows, look like they're floating in the air.

They have said about adding shadows later. 

It's hard to properly judge them without the shadows. they look so odd/out of place without a shadow. 

They do look amazing!

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1 hour ago, Trojan_Turps said:

They have said about adding shadows later. 

It's hard to properly judge them without the shadows. they look so odd/out of place without a shadow. 

They do look amazing!

Shadow will just be the same as the one under a character (a 2D texture drawn under the character) just for clarification.

 

3D objects won't cast their own shadow since so much of the map is 2D as is.

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2 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

Shadow will just be the same as the one under a character (a 2D texture drawn under the character) just for clarification.

 

3D objects won't cast their own shadow since so much of the map is 2D as is.

 

Thinking about it I need to add this to the tasklist. Cheers for the nudge guys :D

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1 hour ago, Keshash said:

Is it just me, or the cars are too big, compared to player character? I'd expect them to be a bit smaller.

 

well, as they should be US-cars, which are always on the big side..

 

but other than that you seems to be right... looks like a car is slightly higher street-to-roof than the player and ca 4x as long... could be that the player shown is only 1.50m high.. so... maybe it's just that ;)

 

but it looks like I have some problems with iso-perspective per se ... have a "problem" (looks odd) about "paralell lines" with the cars .. but it seems to be only me and i DO HAVE problems with my eyes/glases atm..  :)

 

EDIT: to be said: regardless of my previous comment, they look great I am looking forward to get them ingame :D:D:D:D 

Edited by King-Salomon
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7 minutes ago, King-Salomon said:

 

well, as they should be US-cars, which are always on the big side..

 

but other than that you seems to be right... looks like a car is slightly higher street-to-roof than the player and ca 4x as long... could be that the player shown is only 1.50m high.. so... maybe it's just that ;)

 

but it looks like I have some problems with iso-perspective per se ... have a "problem" (looks odd) about "paralell lines" with the cars .. but it seems to be only me and i DO HAVE problems with my eyes/glases atm..  :)

 

EDIT: to be said: regardless of my previous comment, they look great I am looking forward to get them ingame :D:D:D:D 

Average height of american women is about 5ft 4 and 5ft 5

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3 hours ago, Keshash said:

Amazing!

 

Is it just me, or the cars are too big, compared to player character? I'd expect them to be a bit smaller.

 

Oh man you're right. I didn't notice that until you said it. They should definitely be scaled down a bit, because I imagine if you rotate the cars, they will take up almost all of their lane, when, if you go on most roads, cars have a good deal of space in their lane, even larger trucks.

 

EDIT: It's just these three that look larger than their real life counterparts. I rewatched the most recent vehicles vid and they seem to be a good size.

Edited by BayCon
New Realization
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