faatal
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Posts posted by faatal
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15 hours ago, Blake_ said:
City screenshots are amazing. The Art team is doing a great job and Robert did shuffle them nicely this time (understatement of the huge 8-year code work involved). Blending seems better too.
1- In your opinion, how good is RWG in general after testing? (meaning Plz give us 1 more screenshot, plz lol).
2- Did AI get some tweaks in a20 (meaning tiny fixes for some rare wall-lingering behaviours and the like)?
3- How good is AI pathing inside sewers? Do some of them tend to headbutt against the roof and corners or are they more centered and engaged to the player's meat bootie in those instances? (I find randomized behaviour too randomized in some niche close-quarter cases, hence the question)
4- How good is performance within cities compared to any situation in a19? Is the Occluder king in that case ? I'm nervous about that particular burning CPU sensation .
5- I remember instances of heavily modified/destroyed (by the player) POI that get updated for a quest and fail to load fast enough for clients (when doing a shared quest) resulting in a phantom/bugged POI (big ones, like Red Mesa with huge tons of wrenchable stuff can cause those package failures in slow systems and or slow networks )
The question is: Are there improvements to server-client or even client-client performance in a20? (to ensure correct updating for those big chunks of data, even if a bit delayed)
6- What were you testing in RWG at the moment of the screenshots (apart from teasing us, lol) ?
7- Have you tried the Shape menu/block "retunning" performance-wise ? How better does it run vs the old one? (meaning did the latest huge block deletion/renewal/redesign/reasortment pass made a noticeable positive mark on performance?)
8- What about a20 landscapes? Do they load faster than a19 at those crazy mountain ranges?
9- Do Sleepers perform better in a20?
10- Are there any changes to wandering hordes in a20? If so, can you elaborate? It ticks me (get it? lol).
11-Are there any improvements to Level of Detail pop-ins and pop-outs ? (This question is asking in the lines of the believe that Pop-ins and outs should never happen, only pixelated sprites, and no quality option should rule "poppy" behaviour)
12- Do you plan to revisit the door-break physics pet project at some point for a20? It was ridiculously cool for gameplay and I kind of look forward to that at some point.
Thanks in advance.
1 Looks great, but I was not playing the game. Just flying around
2 Not much. Crouching would be the main one
3 Crouching helps there, but there is a bug with them swiping as they walk
4 Hard to compare since there are other general optimizations that make up for it
5 May be better since chunk mesh/collider creation is faster
6 I was checking that optimization/cleanup to biome decoration code did not have errors
7 Seems fine to me
8 Should be the same
9 Same?
10 Don't think so
11 Probably tweaks to some, but a lot of different assets have LODs with separate settings
12 It should be used at some point
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17 hours ago, Annihilatorza said:
Thanks for the screen shot , its looking great.
I just have some questions if I may be so bold
1. Can we go into those tunnels?
2. New bridge and can we build it?
3. New Under construction building?
4. If we put down a bed in a large POI will we have to keep clearing it out?
5. New POI's?
6. Love the blending of the snow and dirt looks really good
7. Can see the zoning at work seems to go from Heavy industrial, to home to business district
1 Yes
2 Just blocks
3 Don't know
4 Same as a19
5 Don't know
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Doing some biome testing and tried RWG.
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6 hours ago, Red Eagle LXIX said:
Will there be an in-game explanation for our players seeing a zombie go through a 1 block opening and wondering why they can't crawl through one?
It will defy the game's own world logic and break immersion.
Sure, that 2 ton backpack you are carrying does not fit.
On 8/21/2021 at 2:20 PM, LordoftheKitten said:@TFP
The dynamic imposters increases the distance that you can see player built structures and changes to POIs further away, is there going to be any change in the distance we can visually see players being rendered in? As of right now, it feels like the distance is about 80m-120m before they start popping in and out of render. Another example is being in a gyrocopter with a friend below on a motorcycle will usually show just the motorcycle being visible so it is a bike driving itself
No changes.
On 8/22/2021 at 5:18 AM, BrunoFuturista said:about alpha 20
we know that we are going to receive some veichle mods, so i would like to know if theres a chance of getting a mounted M60 mod or a mounted turret mod for the 4X4
thanks for ur time
No weapons in A20.
On 8/22/2021 at 3:09 PM, Victor19 said:Will the Vehicle Mods coming in A20 be definitive, or will we have more along with the updates?
Not decided, so yes there could be more.
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On 8/13/2021 at 2:02 PM, Xeen said:
@TFP
Would anyone care to take a stab at explaining CPU core utilization, specifically the maximum number of cores the game engine will utilize.
Also are there any improvements that could be made in the area of multi-core efficiency, specifically in the area of thread loading.Thanks in advance.
Basically we have these threads:
Main
GPU
Mesh building
Mesh colliders (a20)
Pathfinding (1 to x)
Dynamic mesh?
Misc?
Yes, you could always improve stuff, but it comes down to time vs benefit. Do you have the time and is it worth using the time on that.
Mesh colliders is a good example that was added to a20 to get PhysX collider processing off the main thread. It was not super hard or time consuming, but I've had to fix bugs in it twice now. I think it was worth the time.
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On 8/12/2021 at 12:29 AM, sinda said:
fantastic! any changes to how texture streaming will work? there are plenty with computers that can handle streaming off when the game throws the switch (mods with additional assets, etc).. having to manually toss the command in console each time can get tedious; a perma true would be awesome. there are modlets floating around to handle this, but some don't like to rely on modlets for such things. thanks 👍No changes. I would not play with streaming off.
On 8/12/2021 at 5:57 AM, Games'n'Grumble said:Hello there, @faatal ! Once on Twitter, we were shown a new technology for destroying doors. Can you tell us something about this? Should we wait for this mechanic in the A20? Will it affect the FPS? And thank you for your great work! 🙂
Not sure where we are at with that. I did some code/xml for it months ago and Ryan has made some prototypes, but think it was put on hold. He might be working on it again, but could end up in A21.
It should not affect FPS.
On 8/13/2021 at 5:35 AM, Kirill_226RUS said:@faatal, will there ever be a realistic spatial sound in 7 Days To Die? Now, both in a closed space and on the street, shots and the rest sound the same. I'm not asking about the A20, but in general: will there be such a sound in the game, sounding different depending on the environment? Even the old sounds will be felt in a new way, the immersion in the world will improve. And yes - I know that it's not just a couple of ticks to put in Unity.
I give is a 50/50 we change it at some point.
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On 8/8/2021 at 9:01 AM, Yeppi said:
1. Can you tell us please, how many alphas there are still to gold? Is A20 possibly A21 the last or are A22,23,24.. coming??
I love the game, but I would like to build something big again, since I built 2 castles with 250K and 300K blocks in over 500 hours in A11 and they didn't work after a big update, since then I don't dare to build big
2. Or can you insert a function that creates a blueprint of buildings?
3. With A11 you added beautiful caves, which unfortunately were changed in one of the later alphas, i think it was a15 or a16, and from then on they are unfortunately no longer so beautiful. It used to be a real labyrinths, but now are small and unspectacular. Any chance we can get the old caves back?
4. In the past, every animal dropped different meat, resulting in different recipes with different buff, you were proud to have killed a bear and cooked excellent stew from bear meat, or I chased half a map of a chicken with a stone ax to make a roast leg, which I got today you always get the same meat, whether chicken, bear, rabbit, pork, why should you take the risk of chasing a bear when you can kill a rabbit with a bazooka? Can we have different types of meat again, so that it is also worthwhile to hunt a bear, for example? Can you perhaps add old recipes again, so that it is worthwhile to hunt dangerous animals again?
5. In the past you could crawl through 1 block, it would be possible to insert this again, e.g. that you can turn it on or off in settings (if it has been made away because of pvp)?
I would be happy if you could answer some questions, especially if all of them😊. (everything translated by google translate, no liability for errors 😃 )
1 A20 is not the last. Unknown beyond that.
2 Don't know
3 Definitely not the old ones
4 Don't know
5 Not planned for players
On 8/9/2021 at 9:16 AM, Adam the Waster said:So in terms of the Burnt zombie, we have 2 the burnt zombie and the burning zombie
will the Burnt zombie spawn in with normal zombies like Moe, boa etc. while the Burning zombie spawns in the burnt forest/wasteland
Or will they both spawn in that one biome?Don't think that is decided.
On 8/9/2021 at 4:40 PM, Blake_ said:Thank you for that. SMAA is not that great. Not that I care with my potatoe. Last optimization update made my system (arguably) able to handle full settings at an average 20-30 fps (with dips in the 10 fps range) 1080p 65 FOV no VSync no Occluder (CPU bottlenecked system :GTX 780M intel 4800MQ 4/8 2.7ghz). Horde nights are unplayable though, mostly due to Zd skin resolution (biggest problem) + CPU stuff (moderate problem: lights, pathing, block damage...etc) . I believe that will change in a20 (you did say that you optimized Zd skin quality presets a while ago).
On a similar topic. Question:
Will there be reflection handling improvements in a20 and/or the future?
I have seen reinforced glass panels and other reflective surfaces reflect only sky and trees. I'm unsure if it's a custom shader of if Screen Space reflections are directly responsible for that. It will be cool if every reflective surface was directly and completely controlled bia that or other option and if -in those particular shader cases- objects could reflect everything to various degrees of quality depending on player's selection.
I reworked the AA settings today so it goes Off, Low, Medium, High, Temporal. AA Type is now AA Sharpening, which allows you to set temporal's sharpening from 0 to 100 percent for more control. Team feedback has been good, with little performance loss and only a few complaints of too sharp, hence the changes.
After talking about some gfx settings changes and seeing that 55% of players use the medium preset, which is the default, I decided to add an auto detect today, which should get some of those people on better settings.
"Added auto setting of graphics quality preset (6GB+ VRAM sets High. nVidia 2080, 3070, 3080, 3090 or AMD 6800, 6900 sets Ultra)."
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On 8/7/2021 at 6:18 AM, Kirill_226RUS said:
@faatal, I have a few questions for you. How well does TAA work? Does it consume a lot of resources compared to what it is now? And what kind of smoothing does the game use now? FXAA and SMAA?
Well enough that I made it the default on High and Ultra presets. I am still performance testing, but it looks like a few FPS drop. The game looks much clearer with the sharpening, so worth the FPS to me, but TAA can be easily turned off.
Currently we have FXAA for lower and SMAA for higher settings. These are still there if AA Type is set to Standard.
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On 8/6/2021 at 11:42 PM, Roland said:
so..jaggies that will have has had been caused tomorrow don't show up today? Cool, but don't spawn unnecessary extra timelines while driving around in your DeLorean.
Yes. It time travels and exterminates them!
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5 hours ago, Blake_ said:
@faatal what are you working on at the moment? Is it cool?
Today I decided to finish my temporal anti aliasing testing and get it in the game. Mostly done but going to finish testing on Monday before I commit.
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3 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:
@faatal
Sense you work with AI (I think i don't remember)
Will any of the special zombies get any changes in terms of ability'sI do. No special ability changes and very little in terms of general AI changes other than feral sense and crouching.
1 hour ago, Fanatical_Meat said:@faatal I know this could change so I accept your answer now may not the the “correct” answer.
what Will hordes look like in A20?
IMO the best hordes were A16 give or take. Just feels like the horde time is really tight and without mods they can be anticlimactic.
currently in A19 they aren’t bad I just remember them being more intense.
Also will A20 have more zombies roaming around the biom’s vs A19 un-modded?
**When I say Tight above I mean the time duration. Feels like older alphas the zombies came all night and you were cleaning them up in the morning. More current alphas feel like an intense but short duration. Like all zombies are cleaned up by 4am now you stand around and wait.
Blood moons should be the same.
Biomes the same. Would like to do some changes with cities, but may not happen in A20.
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18 hours ago, Blake_ said:
Yes, raycasts on their own are cheap. Talking to the main thread is not, hence my crazy performance estimation . I believe anything block related has to go through the main thread, does it not? better 1 block than 100.
Raycasts are on the main thread, but all the code doing them are also on the main thread, so there is no issue with waiting.
7 hours ago, Burrfly said:@faatal, do you maybe know if (as noted in the dev diary) the 'animation improvements' also mean like: updated or new zombie/player animations?
Other than a new bear run anim, it appears all the primary animation changes are for player weapons and tools usage (attack/aim/holding/reload/etc).
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19 minutes ago, Blake_ said:
Even easier? forget the blocks.
Case 1: Does the one raycast fully collide with the player? only distance muffle like it is now then.
Case 2: Does it hit a block (ANY block, open or not) ?
(ANY block in between + some assets that you can add the property to, of course I wouldn't add the property to doors or hatches of any type, but yes to cardboard boxes or cobblestone or cement or some domestic appliances, for example)
then we hear Reververated/mildly muffled sound. Poles can be ignored by the raycast, doors too. It's a matter of fine tunning when it's in.
STILL has a hefty CPU performance cost... yet it is always better to just treat all the blocks the same way (or rather, in a binary way). Just 1 raycast per entity to each player individually is the best approach.
The downside to this approach is that you have to add the ability to be raycastable or not to every block and asset in the game (tedious and repetitive work once the code is in, but it's not that bad).
Performance cost to each raycast? As intensive as an entity spawning but in real time, so yeah, 100-500% performance cost in lower end computers. Unless you limit the raycasts to like 5 entities at a time, then it would probably be playable.....
Sure you can just say did it hit anything, but that sounds like of lame and I don't want to spend time on that.
Poles and doors are blocks, so that is checking blocks.
Raycasts are cheap. You should see the massive amount of raycasts the path grid uses.
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12 hours ago, samljer said:
Couldnt a single raycast between zombie and player do that; one raycast per zombie?
Like if it goes interrupted, then half sound, otherwise full?
of course "if horde night" then disabled.
It could, but should what you hit block the sound? Say it is a pole or other small obstacle, it should not, which means block shapes would have to be flagged for it. We have a lot of shapes.
1 hour ago, Matt115 said:well this is my point? i want skeleton not as enemy but as props ( like corpses bags etc). but for limited time - like hallowen they can be enemies too - you now we have something for christmas
@faatal small question about cities. tiles are looking like can be connected with every site to another by road but can we expect something like :
dead end road with only drive from one side but on rest are building?
Don't know. Robert could tell you.
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7 hours ago, Kirill_226RUS said:
I hope that the new Screamer Zombie will summon real hordes in new large and dense cities. @faatal, will it have new sounds?
Have not heard about any new sounds.
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1 hour ago, Jost Amman said:
Wow. Thanks for all the technical stuff... but I was talking maybe about something much simpler.
Maybe they could use the same code they use now to know if you're "inside", to mark you "behind walls" hence producing less sound.
The inside detection is not that great and could use more research. You also end up with cases like you are inside, but zombies are too, so it should not be muffled for them except maybe their indoors is really adjacent to yours in another room/building, so it should be muffled.
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6 hours ago, Jost Amman said:
@faatal Will the team ever work on implementing "sound dampening"?
It would be great before gold if we could have walls/terrain lower the effect of our sounds (or the hearing capability of the AI). Thanks
Not on the radar right now. It will add some performance overhead, so we would have to evaluate if worth it.
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1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:
*Fingers crossed this will happen someday*
A2020.3.14? So how many centuries are we supposed to work on this game???
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11 hours ago, Annihilatorza said:
In the video they are using 2020.3.1f1 and on twitter they did say they might have a higher version they are working with.
9 hours ago, gizmomelb said:thanks for the info.. will go see what ray tracing support etc. is in 2020.3 (if any) - but hoping a Unity update will eventually mean ray tracing support for really impressive gfx and shadowing (and Unity 2021.2 beta has support for PS5 and XBOX X series - so TFP could end up producing console versions themselves).
I've been using 2020.3.14 for weeks and appears fine. Once builds gets tested using it, if it works well, then that will probably be A20's version.
Raytracing, DLSS, etc has to be supported by the render pipeline not just Unity in general. Those are HDRP features. We use the built in pipeline, which does not and may never support them. We have no plans to update 7dtd to HDRP, since it will take a lot of time. We hope to use HDRP on one of our next games.
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19 hours ago, Blake_ said:
Does that mean that electrical traps can also be activated inside of a POI by, say, opening the final loot room? Have you heard or seen something like that from the level design team?
Has that "trigger code" the ability to transform one block/asset into another ?
Don't know. I'm sure it could if we wanted to.
19 hours ago, Matt115 said:Does this item be "invisible" for zombie? because it could be quiet annoying if random zombie destroy quest block ( like generator bank) when he will destroy everywhing on his patch
Probably no, but if it is an issue, we will deal with it.
16 hours ago, samljer said:Steam patch: ... "Stay tuned alpha 20 is coming!"
Does this mean we can expect it in the next month?
No, but probably a few.
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1 hour ago, dcsobral said:
Wait, what??? Nevermind the sleepers, tell me more about these door-opening switches on POIs!
A few weeks ago, Lathan added a block trigger system which will be used for the restore power quest. Multiple triggers, like switches, can be on a layer and blocks, like doors, can respond to them by doing something such as opening or closing.
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4 hours ago, Blake_ said:
Wait... falling doesn't happen without previous damage or a player proximity trigger for current sleepers. Ever. Does that mean that there are wandering sleepers already in the game?
In A20, surprise, there are some switches that open doors where they drop and were then staying asleep.
You could also remove a block they were standing on.
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3 hours ago, Blake_ said:
Yes, I realized as I said it . Feral sense doesn't "activate" per se. It's just there for enemy entities as a coded property.
I have an inquiry about sleeper volumes. You say that they are passive (blind and deaf) until the player is at the edge. What about their feelings? (lol, I'll explain):
What if the player is outside the edge of the volume and sees the sleeper Zd and shoots it? Do they react? I seem to think they do based on experience, but I'm not sure.
So they don't see or hear... but do they register damage? Do they behave like normal once you hit them with a sniper rifle from afar?
Damage or now also falling in A20 causes them to wake.
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Alpha 20 Dev Diary
in News & Announcements
Posted
I think I fixed that months ago.