Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[littlegreen]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

Cores beyond 2 will only partially be used because other than the main thread and graphics thread, everything else is tasks that do not need to be done every frame. Like the new collision mesh baking thread. It only needs to bake when a chunk loads or is changed (damage, block added/removed). The fact that it can run on another core means that when it is running, it will not steal time from the main thread, which would decrease FPS.

Is this behaviour enforced?

It makes sense that when lots of chunks are changing, the game struggles a little bit... so if this is (or can be) enforced, would that not reduce the low FPS dips/stutters?

[falloutcloud]

Just watched the presentation from last Wednesday and there was a lot to love. Glad to see the blunderbuss getting replaced with the pipe shotgun. It looks, moves, and sounds awesome!

I liked the pipe baton but I have to say I was not impressed with the animation. The movements didn't feel very smooth or natural. I can only imagine how much work goes into animating the weapons so I apologize for being critical.

I'm very excited for the new cellar doors. So many new opportunities for POIs and builds. They look great and the ability to shoot and throw grenades through them adds a ton to the gameplay.

Can't wait to see the next stream!

[RhinoW]

1 hour ago, falloutcloud said:

Just watched the presentation from last Wednesday and there was a lot to love. Glad to see the blunderbuss getting replaced with the pipe shotgun. It looks, moves, and sounds awesome!

I liked the pipe baton but I have to say I was not impressed with the animation. The movements didn't feel very smooth or natural. I can only imagine how much work goes into animating the weapons so I apologize for being critical.

I'm very excited for the new cellar doors. So many new opportunities for POIs and builds. They look great and the ability to shoot and throw grenades through them adds a ton to the gameplay.

Can't wait to see the next stream!

Same opinion here, animations are still mediocre (besides the reloads, but even they have flow issues) and snappy in all the wrong ways. Viewmodels/idle holding animations also don't do justice to most weapons, and aiming down sights still feels rough all around, no smooth transitions and everything is all up in your face.

For reference, animating a weapon isn't hard (unless it's something high-tech with lots of moving components and disassembling, which isn't the case here), making the skeleton is the hard part as always (rigging). However these guys have more than enough skill to make great weapon animations, I really have no clue what's happening, there's no excuse for the weapons still feeling bad to shoot while looking that good. You can be critical all you want, we're talking more than 200 millions dollars here.

 

I've been yapping about this issue since A17-18 when the game started taking it's looter shooter turn and literally the only weapon that has good animations (shooting and aiming down sights included), is the double barrel shotgun. But I'm gonna wait until I can actually shoot them in-game, and hope I'm wrong until then.

[TWORDY]

Animations are not the worst not the best like in most of the games. The only solution is to improve animation flow and sequences on the screen - someone has to visit shooting range devs and have a look by himself. That would be a priceless and fun experience for the team and you might do recaps for yt. Record some of the behavior and sounds of the guns, this might be performed by the Professionals in the field then draw conclusions for the game obviously. Find some experts on melee combat - there is a lot to be learned. TFP, treat such an approach as an investment into the future. Still, I`m happy to see some progress in new/refreshed equipment. Not everything has to be uber realistic but timings of the finalized actions have to be right, otherwise the brain starts to jitter 😘.

 

Try exporting weapon animations up to 240 frames, not 120 and check the results on 165hz screens on a really high end PC.

[Fanatical_Meat]

Someone please make a hitler complaining video before release. 

[Matt115]

47 minutes ago, TWORDY said:

Animations are not the worst not the best like in most of the games. The only solution is to improve animation flow and sequences on the screen - someone has to visit shooting range devs and have a look by himself. That would be a priceless and fun experience for the team and you might do recaps for yt. Record some of the behavior and sounds of the guns, this might be performed by the Professionals in the field then draw conclusions for the game obviously. Find some experts on melee combat - there is a lot to be learned. TFP, treat such an approach as an investment into the future. Still, I`m happy to see some progress in new/refreshed equipment. Not everything has to be uber realistic but timings of the finalized actions have to be right, otherwise the brain starts to jitter 😘.

 

Try exporting weapon animations up to 240 frames, not 120 and check the results on 165hz screens on a really high end PC.

Honestly melee combat is similiar to minecraft - and that is good. this is not dying light , for honor chivaly to have complited melee system.

7dtd animations let you know if something is in your range and when you will hit for sure. in some games you think you will hit there but character attack in diffrent way and that is annoying . So this is good enough for sandbox zombie game

[RhinoW]

49 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Honestly melee combat is similiar to minecraft - and that is good. this is not dying light , for honor chivaly to have complited melee system.

7dtd animations let you know if something is in your range and when you will hit for sure. in some games you think you will hit there but character attack in diffrent way and that is annoying . So this is good enough for sandbox zombie game

Do I need to remind people of the existence of a game named Unturned? That despite the goofy nature, has way smoother first person animations both melee and weapon, great melee combat and hit feedback and I'm gonna add the fact that the melee is hitscan, no swing angle is implemented. though the zombies are much wider. But this is just an example, made by 1 person btw.

[Matt115]

12 minutes ago, RhinoW said:

Do I need to remind people of the existence of a game named Unturned? That despite the goofy nature, has way smoother first person animations both melee and weapon, great melee combat and hit feedback and I'm gonna add the fact that the melee is hitscan, no swing angle is implemented. though the zombies are much wider. But this is just an example, made by 1 person btw.

when i was play in this game (2-3 yo ago maybe) it was like dayz . so it was far away from "building sandbox" it was PVPVE like day z

[meganoth]

35 minutes ago, RhinoW said:

Do I need to remind people of the existence of a game named Unturned? That despite the goofy nature, has way smoother first person animations both melee and weapon, great melee combat and hit feedback and I'm gonna add the fact that the melee is hitscan, no swing angle is implemented. though the zombies are much wider. But this is just an example, made by 1 person btw.

Well, I'd like to remind people about a game named Civilization. World wide success without hit boxes at all 😁

 

[Roland]

2 hours ago, RhinoW said:

Do I need to remind people of the existence of a game named Unturned?

 

No. Do I have to remind people of the problems of comparing apples and oranges...?

[RhinoW]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Well, I'd like to remind people about a game named Civilization. World wide success without hit boxes at all 😁

 

Ah yes, Civilization series, the infamous top selling first person shooter. Jokes aside, quite interesting how they played around an interface based game, however, from what I just saw, it does have hitboxes, when you click on the unit tile to attack. A game with no hitboxes would be those choice based text games like dating sims.

Just now, Roland said:

 

No. Do I have to remind people of the problems of comparing apples and oranges...?

Where did I compare apples to oranges? I'm comparing two first person shooter games, with inventory based weapon selection, with aiming down sights and with simple melee combat (light and power attack). Furthermore, I'm comparing animation and hit feedback "quality". Sandbox or not, is not relevant to the topic, when the main combat is literally the same in both games.

[RedBeardedJoe]

I cant wait for A20 This is RedBeardedJoe Everyone i am so Hyped for it of course ill still die from hunger since i dont like a Campfire in my Base

[Roland]

Sandbox or not isn't the difference I'm talking about. Unturned is minimalist in textures and graphics and voxels whereas 7 Days to Die is pushing the envelope. Getting smoother animations is a function of performance. Turn all your video settings down to minimum and you will see gains in how smoothly you move and animate at the expense of a nice looking world. At the same time, by doing so, 7 Days to Die and Unturned will start being a more similar comparison.

 

6 hours ago, RhinoW said:

these guys have more than enough skill to make great weapon animations, I really have no clue what's happening, there's no excuse for the weapons still feeling bad to shoot while looking that good.

 

You said it. They are good and have more than enough skill and therefore there really is something happening that makes it appear poor and why on your computer Unturned would feel so much smoother than 7 Days to Die. When I recently upgraded my computer the game felt MUCH smoother than it had. I've watched videos of people with much much better rigs than I have and I noticed how much better their animations were and how smooth everything was compared to my own plays.

[Fanatical_Meat]

3 hours ago, RhinoW said:

Do I need to remind people of the existence of a game named Unturned? That despite the goofy nature, has way smoother first person animations both melee and weapon, great melee combat and hit feedback and I'm gonna add the fact that the melee is hitscan, no swing angle is implemented. though the zombies are much wider. But this is just an example, made by 1 person btw.

 

My two cents.

The fact that people need to be reminded it exists sort of defeats the purpose....

 

[Matt115]

52 minutes ago, Roland said:

Sandbox or not isn't the difference I'm talking about. Unturned is minimalist in textures and graphics and voxels whereas 7 Days to Die is pushing the envelope. Getting smoother animations is a function of performance. Turn all your video settings down to minimum and you will see gains in how smoothly you move and animate at the expense of a nice looking world. At the same time, by doing so, 7 Days to Die and Unturned will start being a more similar comparison.

 

Small offtopic but - how valve manage to create soo good gore with so many zombies on screen? there isn't any game with  having even close gore system to l4d2.  Most game have "gore" only as static prop  like corpses on spikes

[RhinoW]

47 minutes ago, Roland said:

Sandbox or not isn't the difference I'm talking about. Unturned is minimalist in textures and graphics and voxels whereas 7 Days to Die is pushing the envelope. Getting smoother animations is a function of performance. Turn all your video settings down to minimum and you will see gains in how smoothly you move and animate at the expense of a nice looking world. At the same time, by doing so, 7 Days to Die and Unturned will start being a more similar comparison.

 

 

You said it. They are good and have more than enough skill and therefore there really is something happening that makes it appear poor and why on your computer Unturned would feel so much smoother than 7 Days to Die. When I recently upgraded my computer the game felt MUCH smoother than it had. I've watched videos of people with much much better rigs than I have and I noticed how much better their animations were and how smooth everything was compared to my own plays.

I think you misunderstood what I said. Graphics, performance, voxel is irrelevant to what I'm talking about. When I mean smooth, I'm talking animation frames, I'm talking the animation itself, I play 7 days with constant 60FPS and good looking settings, and I have tested every single weapon, the problem is not lag or graphics...

One of the recurring problems, for instance, that all guns have with the exception of the double barrel and the new sniper rifle (even the showcased pipe weapons have it), is that the shooting/recoil animation is too snappy, and the recovery is essentially invisible. Shooting them feels completely off, I don't know if it's a frame rate problem ON THE ANIMATION ITSELF, or the animation duration/frame ratio is too low, but it just feels off. Maybe Unity is interpolating the frames poorly on the import settings, again, I can't know the cause, from here, it looks like a fundamental animation problem to me, so I'll go with that. Either way, it's a problem that hinders the combat fluidity potential.

 

There are so many great references for FPS animations and weapon positioning/viewmodel, this really shouldn't be an issue.

 

I could write a few more paragraphs about it, and all the problems regarding the animation/combat fluidity of the game. But I have a distinct feeling that one really gives a crap about this unfortunately. Visually A20 is looking stunning though, the artists and level designers are hard carrying this.

[Adam the Waster]

1 hour ago, JosephBrewerGaming said:

I cant wait for A20 This is RedBeardedJoe Everyone i am so Hyped for it of course ill still die from hunger since i dont like a Campfire in my Base

i just make a makeshift stove by putting a campfire on a stove

(yes i live in POIs fight me)

[RhinoW]

12 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Small offtopic but - how valve manage to create soo good gore with so many zombies on screen? there isn't any game with  having even close gore system to l4d2.  Most game have "gore" only as static prop  like corpses on spikes

Indeed, left 4 dead 2 was way ahead of it's time, and truly, the only game that can compete in terms of dismemberment, is Dead Island. I stabbed a zombie corpse on that game in each part of the body, from what I remember.

Arms are divided in 4 sections, each with 5 tiers of gore/deterioration, from skin to bone (hand, forearm, bicep, shoulder);

Legs are also divided similarly, also with 5 tiers;

Upper chest, lower chest, upper back, lower back, all with 5 tiers as well;
Can't remember for the head.

 

However these details are only noticeable if you literally start stabbing an inanimate corpse. In Dying Light they simplified the gore most likely because of this.

 

For Left 4 Dead 2, I can only imagine that the common's bodies are already heavily divided, and they have gore parts ready to be replaced whenever that specific body chunk is destroyed. That's why you can sometimes see the gore replacements off place.

 

EDIT: I did work on exploring mesh replacements/destruction on my last project, getting simple dismemberment (especially on death) or body decay based on health is nothing complicated, but l4d2 is something else...

[Matt115]

13 minutes ago, RhinoW said:

Indeed, left 4 dead 2 was way ahead of it's time, and truly, the only game that can compete in terms of dismemberment, is Dead Island. I stabbed a zombie corpse on that game in each part of the body, from what I remember.

Arms are divided in 4 sections, each with 5 tiers of gore/deterioration, from skin to bone (hand, forearm, bicep, shoulder);

Legs are also divided similarly, also with 5 tiers;

Upper chest, lower chest, upper back, lower back, all with 5 tiers as well;
Can't remember for the head.

 

However these details are only noticeable if you literally start stabbing an inanimate corpse. In Dying Light they simplified the gore most likely because of this.

 

For Left 4 Dead 2, I can only imagine that the common's bodies are already heavily divided, and they have gore parts ready to be replaced whenever that specific body chunk is destroyed. That's why you can sometimes see the gore replacements off place.

 

EDIT: I did work on exploring mesh replacements/destruction on my last project, getting simple dismemberment (especially on death) or body decay based on health is nothing complicated, but l4d2 is something else...

Honestly Dead Island have quiet good gore system but without "wow" effect- maybe because melee weapons is weaker (stats). Only "good" thing in Dying light is - attack from above will create "crushed head" if you jump with crowbar and you can cut enemy in halve- i hope it could be sometimes in 7dtd too ^^ Could you tell about this project?

[Laz Man]

15 hours ago, hiemfire said:

Are the tarps going to be craftable by players in game or are those planned to be limited to the custom poi/level designers?

 

No, I don't believe so as those are not shapes.  

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

 

No, I don't believe so as those are not shapes.  

Okay, no big there. Do we still have access to the awning blocks? If so that'd work too.

[Mr. gnome]

Is it possible that Bosses - Helicopters will appear in alpha 20 or later? (not a joke)

[Roland]

22 hours ago, hiemfire said:

Okay, no big there. Do we still have access to the awning blocks? If so that'd work too.

 

Awning blocks are gone.

 

13 hours ago, Mr. gnome said:

Is it possible that Bosses - Helicopters will appear in alpha 20 or later? (not a joke)

 

No for A20 but very possibly for later. faatal has stated he wants to add a helicopter.

[MechanicalLens]

The new weapons look fantastic so far! However, I'd like to point out one small nitpick. In the models shown in the most recent dev stream, the scopes for the AK-47 and the Tactical Assault Rifle were on backwards. 😛 Hopefully this will be fixed at some point, if it isn't already!

[KhaineGB]

26 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Awning blocks are gone.

 

 

No for A20 but very possibly for later. faatal has stated he wants to add a helicopter.

Is the Awning texture still there?

If so, probably easy to mod back in.