Higher Fidelity

[nasKo]

 

Hey all, another busy week in Build 41 development – so here’s a few of the different things that people are up to.

An area that was proving strange in terms of 41 development was that somewhere along the way some of the visual fidelity of characters had been lost – and simultaneously, somehow, models looked far more buff/hunky than intended. Feet, also, seemed a little on the large side. After a bit of a dig, this week we finally located a bug in the exported model data that explained it.

Due to this bug, the lighting of the characters was broken, which resulted in very washed out characters with little lighting shading – which in turn removed definition that made muscles look bulkier. This has now been fixed and will, after re-exporting all the clothing, allow us to achieve much better character model rendering and lighting than we’ve shown off previously during this recent leg of anim development.

With that said, this Before and After shot should still be taken as WIP. We have a lot of the definition back, but we’ve still not balanced the colouring, saturation, definition and lighting. We’re now in a far better position to polish though, and future Thursday screens and videos should look MUCH improved. This screenshot is taken with evening light.

Next up, a key aspect of PZ mapping is zoning – which we primarily use to mark up areas that are (for example) suitable for foraging and car spawns. Now however, with different clothing for zombies, we can flag which parts of the PZ map can spawn which particular zombie – or which group of particular zombies.

This, then, is how we can spawn only guards and orange jumpsuit-wearing prisoners in Rosewood prison.

(Please note the following screens still have slightly wonky colours and lighting)

Likewise, RJ has created a ‘wedding’ spawn zone over one of the churches on the map – which ensures that all zombies inside it, and outside for the selected area, have a very high chance of dressing in smart clothing, with a guaranteed bride, groom and church minister amongst them.

This system will allow us to have many and varied different pockets of particular zeds – police in police stations, military in military areas etc. Likewise, we will be examining the best methods to make sure that zeds in bathrobes or not wearing clothes are only found in homes and home bathrooms in particular.

(It should be noted that aspects of this will also involve a very slight rewrite of PZ lore in terms of the outbreak, but we had intended to return to the radio/TV broadcasts soon in any case).

RJ has been experimenting with this system while waiting for additional work on rotational anim movements and programmable anim-speed support in AnimZed from Zac and Turbo – but has also this week worked on knife attack animations, and tying survivors and zeds getting bloodied to them in-game.

This has also involved us adding some additional combat skills, and in the process removing the skill point system. From Build 41 onwards skills will automatically level up when you gain the XP requirements, as we felt the manual skill point system never worked particularly well and would do so even less with many more skills.

Elsewhere Mash has begun creating icons for new clothing and weapons, Will had begun setting naming conventions for them, and Connall has continued to implement new timed actions. Yuri is finishing off adapting his water/puddles into Zac’s revamped shader system, and starting to make plans for fire improvement. The other Zac meanwhile, Young Zach, continues to deliver new South-tinged music, and Xeonyx is currently chasing map bugs in his now complete Kingsmouth Island challenge map.  

We’ll try and get a gameplay video showing the improved lighting, blood and blade combat next week, have a good one until then!

This week’s home on the range from Old Gregg. Bailey’s. Mmm… creamy. Soft creamy beige. 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.

[xXxFANCYCAPYBARA36xXx]

i really hope we get a video showcasing the blade combat blood and improved lighting next week that would be the first thursdoid in years that i would actually look forward to

the lighting looks awesome i like the gradient kinda effect it has on his chest in the pic

[Zorak]

Actualy I preffer less skills but more important ones. Instead of 8 combat related skills 1 would be fine. Just add perk system each 2 lvls, where you can choose 1 combat perk on top of passive buff. Same goes for Agility skills. Its weird that I can fight like a champ with long blunt and at the same time have no idea what to do with short ones.

Beside that the update looks cool.

[King-Salomon]

really great work

 

some small points about the skills:

 

First Aid should be a "Survival skill" and no crafting skill...

 

Firearms are combat skills too.. so it is a little bit confusing to name hand-combat "combat" ... maybe a second skill tab for the combat skills would be a good idea.. one tab for "normal" skills and the other for combat skills - hand combat, firearms etc (will there be a skill for "combat without weapon"?

 

great read

[Geras]

This looks promising.

As @Zorak said, I hope some rebalancing of skills will take place sooner or later. There's no need for a few skills to exist.

[Petra]

great work

i can already smell it 

[Tails]

This is some nice work you are showing us this weeks Thursdoid. 

 

 

The clothing looks and suitable locations for zombies wearing certain clothing to look amazing.  Hopefully have more starter clothing options for character such as wearing the uniform of the occupation that the player has chosen.

 

Another thing that would be interesting is the loot on the certain themed zombies for example like a police officer zombie with pistol , radio and ammo.

 

 

The skill system looks amazing with its combat section.  Hopefully firearms category will offer some types of skills depending on the firearms class such as  a Pistol skill, shotgun skill, rifle skill ect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Suomiboi]

4 hours ago, Zorak said:

Actualy I preffer less skills but more important ones. Instead of 8 combat related skills 1 would be fine. Just add perk system each 2 lvls, where you can choose 1 combat perk on top of passive buff. Same goes for Agility skills. Its weird that I can fight like a champ with long blunt and at the same time have no idea what to do with short ones.

Beside that the update looks cool.

I actually prefer more skills and just like this, when you do something specific you get better at it specifically. If I swim a lot, that doesn't make me a good runner, it just improves my fitness. I find that too many modern games go with simpler is better approach because it seems intuitive, but it many times isn't better. This way increases differences in characters and therefore consequences for your actions and makes a more interesting gameplay.

And hi to all! Long time no post.

[jamesorbe0]

2 hours ago, Suomiboi said:

I actually prefer more skills and just like this, when you do something specific you get better at it specifically. If I swim a lot, that doesn't make me a good runner, it just improves my fitness. I find that too many modern games go with simpler is better approach because it seems intuitive, but it many times isn't better. This way increases differences in characters and therefore consequences for your actions and makes a more interesting gameplay.

And hi to all! Long time no post.

Agreed

[Sobreviviente Ansioso]

How beautiful that the game is, tell me that please, by April, you are going to get a beta or something close to prove how the game is going

[Peemore]

I think there should still be a small chance for zeds to spawn outside their designated areas. May not be necessary if they are able to break out and wander on their own, though. It's been a while I can't recall if that can happen off-screen.

 

Seeing a zombie walking down the street in a bathrobe once in a blue moon would be cool.

 

Or seeing a zed in a spiffo costume at the police station and wondering why he was arrested.

[Wilson2D]

Please tell me the knifes were nerfed.

[lemmy101]

22 minutes ago, Wilson2D said:

Please tell me the knifes were nerfed.

 

nothing is nerfed as in the entire combat system is being built from scratch from the ground up, but yes we're going to look into making sure we don't make certain weapons aren't OP. while building it from scratch

[Geras]

22 hours ago, Suomiboi said:

I actually prefer more skills and just like this, when you do something specific you get better at it specifically. If I swim a lot, that doesn't make me a good runner, it just improves my fitness. I find that too many modern games go with simpler is better approach because it seems intuitive, but it many times isn't better. This way increases differences in characters and therefore consequences for your actions and makes a more interesting gameplay.

And hi to all! Long time no post.

 

IMO there's really no need for Blunt Guard and Blade Guard, just merge them into one skill.

Same with Lightfooted and Sneaking, they even lvl up at almost identical speed.

[EnigmaGrey]

Give every weapon and action its own skill/proficiency; influrnce it by one other global skill.  E.g blade impacts proficiency for knives.

 

Death to the skill system.

[Body Builder]

WoW, i don't know if this is a game or real life! Congratulations, Pz!

A question for the staff:

There should be the chance for to see and play (aesthetically) a Brawny-Bulky physique, like a Ultra Bruiser Bodybuilder/Weightlifter (high anabolic steroids) archetype character?

Or probably is too much difficult to adapt all clothes to a big and large character?

Thanks in advance!

Edited February 16, 2019 by Body Builder

[trombonaught]

16 hours ago, Geras said:

 

IMO there's really no need for Blunt Guard and Blade Guard, just merge them into one skill.

Same with Lightfooted and Sneaking, they even lvl up at almost identical speed.

Signal boost on this. If I envision the  guard skills narratively they seem to be the same maneuvers, regardless of whether there's a blunt or bladed object in hand. Maybe it could level slower, but I think in any case it should be one skill.

 

Same with lightfooted and sneaking. It seems too gamey to have different scores for different rates of movement. The way I think about RL sneakiness is either you know how to sneak or you don't. If anything, I think a single sneak skill should create a base sneak value that is then modified by a value from the slow/walk/run states.

 

Unrelated, great update. Even withou flashy vids and whatnot it still felt really informative. Thank nasKo!

[DresdenBBQ]

Can't wait for this update! It's always pleasant to revisit the forums after a month or two & see the Mond-, I mean, Thursdoids! Keep up the great work y'all! I've been dyin' for an update that shows different clothes on zombies & my character! Nothin' against the hearty sweater, blouse & vest, but a new batch of fresh clothes is always lovely. 

[Erkinwine]

Great to see the new skills and revamped skill system - I agree that as skills were added, leveling was becoming encumbered. It might now be necessary to tweak the experience required for a level as the first two or three levels might seem a bit quick. - just say'n.