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Thursday (now Friday--oops!) Quickie


MashPotato

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Hello everyone - a shorter Thurdoid this week, just a few announcements.

 

Build 38

We've just released what will hopefully be the last IWBUMS of build 38 before we finally put it to bed. You can find the changelist for 38.25 here. We'll probably aim to go public with it on Monday, at which point the vehicle build will become the prime build and all hands will move onto it.

We've pretty much got the dedicated server system set up on the new build system, so will have updated that soon and will announce it when that happens with hopefully a good chunk of the weekend left to assure no issues remain with online play for a Monday release. At which point we'll upload to GOG and finally put this version to bed! Speaking of GOG:

 

GOG Builds

In the past, due to the difficulty of how we've handled builds it meant we haven't given GOG users as speedy or regular updates and we're sorry about that, it's clearly not been good enough. However part of the focus on revamping our build system means that we should be able to investigate IWBUMS support for the vehicles build once build 38 is out the door, at which point both versions will retain parity as much as possible. (It may be however GOG Linux will lag behind a bit since it requires a zip file upload to ftp, and is not directly uploadable via the GOG backend, but it will still be a lot faster and IWBUMS compatible).

 

Build 39

A few interesting updates here. ChrisW has been working on the new cutaway system for some time, which as you know provides sexier cutaways allowing for more buildings to appear in full without the entire world being cut away at once. He's now moved onto a rather huge optimisation in the same arena of code that should allow us to address the severe FPS loss we've been experiencing, particularly on the vehicle build. By removing unseen furniture and other tiles from inside building levels above the player that are hidden, it should massively reduce the amount that the game needs to draw, and should have a noticeable improvement on FPS particularly on a zoomed out view and in towns. As well as this Steve from BitBaboon has turned his optimisation sights onto the vehicle build, and we'll hopefully make some big gains to FPS in the vehicle build.

Meanwhile RJ and Yuri continue to expand on the various vehicle systems required for release, this week with a particular focus on balancing, while Mash has been doing major work on the damage and other overlay textures. Next on the list from RJ is more work on the mechanics UI. Yuri and Martin will be looking into visibly opening trunks/hoods/doors to make interacting with vehicles much more realistic.

That's all for this week, apologies its a bit of a short one this week normal Thursdoid will resume next week!

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Glad to hear about the Build 39 FPS improvements that are being worked on, hope you guys can find the best way to address that and help both me and anyone with a lower specs PC playing. I've set my shadows to lowest and lightning to 5, and by doing so and using zoom 75-100 I am able to navigate pretty easily in the suburban parts of the Towns, the highway being the best since there are few buildings and not as many zombies in sight. I've seen some improvements in the latest car build and for that I am thankful for!

I was wondering if you could make streetlights and/or trashcans/ mailboxes as hard objects so that the car can crash into them and get damaged. 

 

Another thing, I saw while each time getting closer to cars, one thing in particular. Steering wheels (and maybe chairs inside, not sure), so to hear the probability of visibly opening trunks/hoods/doors seems amazing to me, especially when/if we'll change doors and so on.

Also, when I removed the hood part, there was well, a hood texture underneath it. Are you going to please add an engine texture over it so that when we remove the hood only the engine parts inside remain to be seen and not the same hood texture ?

 

Other than that, 'grats for getting this far with your promises and I hope to see many more Zomboid fans in the future!

Best of luck.

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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.

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51 minutes ago, martingee said:

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.

One of my concerns with the doors/trunks/hoods is that they might cause lag in both single player and multiplayer if the character decides to leave them open somehow or if they freeze (I'm not sure if when you back out of the inventory the doors/trunks/hoods automatically close down) and they start driving with the hood or trunk up. 

Although, I would love to see open car doors/trunks/hoods on the side of the road, in traffic jams and so on. While there might be stuff worth searching for in the cars, most of them will be either out of gas or out of battery since they might have been left running or with their lights on etc. 

I'm not sure how you guys will implement those but it would add a lot more to the realism to see cars that have been left like that. 

stock-photo-an-abandoned-car-on-the-side

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18 hours ago, Legoland99 said:

One of my concerns with the doors/trunks/hoods is that they might cause lag in both single player and multiplayer if the character decides to leave them open somehow or if they freeze (I'm not sure if when you back out of the inventory the doors/trunks/hoods automatically close down) and they start driving with the hood or trunk up. 

Although, I would love to see open car doors/trunks/hoods on the side of the road, in traffic jams and so on. While there might be stuff worth searching for in the cars, most of them will be either out of gas or out of battery since they might have been left running or with their lights on etc. 

I'm not sure how you guys will implement those but it would add a lot more to the realism to see cars that have been left like that. 

stock-photo-an-abandoned-car-on-the-side

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.

 

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Thanks for taking the time to answer to my concerns. I hope that interiors do make an appearance and that the possibility to visibly remove chairs from inside the car becomes available. I think that maybe a randomizer program/code would help with the vehicles. The normal, parked vehicles that you find in a driveway/parking lot should be with their doors/trunks etc closed and maybe only have a chance of let's say, 5-10% to find one that has the trunk or a door left open, as if to say that the infected person managed to get out before re-animating back to life or a survivor who tried to escape/loot and left the trunk/door/hood open. That would be nice. Same would apply for cars on the road and such, but they should have a higher chance of having doors/hood/trunks left open or lights/engines left to run before the battery/gas gets drained from them, or engine failure.

I think that there should be a percentage (%) system implemented like with maybe loot spawns, you know ? In which both you Dev's and the custom map creators can edit the amount of car's being spawned, probability of vehicles with engines on/off, lights on/off, hoods/trunks/doors left open/closed or all/nothing, you know ? I saw a system like it (way more simplified) on the Unturned Editor, something similar maybe ? Or yeah, a proposal like that. And I think that when a player gets in the car he'd have to close all car doors/trunk/hood unless he wants the steering wheel to be awkward, jerky and hard to control (since he can't quite see with the hood left open), items falling down or getting lost because the trunk is open, and bites/scratches for doors left open. So I think that there should be a button or a double click to close the door/trunk/hood so you won't have to press V and such, especially if followed by zombies. 

I hope this peaks the interest and helps out in any way possible. Also on curbs and such the doors if left upon would automatically close themselves from the jerky movements. But as for the hood/trunk they'd have to get closed manually for better driving performance (actually see where you're going) and not losing items. Players who left those open should have the consequence of high degradation to their engine parts via zombie-hits and loss of items being carried in the back of the trunk.

 

(Maybe find crawlers in cars, just a suggestion (.-_-.) )

 

massachusetts-introduced-a-bill-that-reg

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On 29 октября 2017 at 1:44 PM, martingee said:

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.

 

Hope too see some info about opening doors/hoods/trunks this week. Also i have a question about hood and engine. Will we be able to remove engine and hood not only in context mechanic menu, but on visual level too?

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