Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Matt115]

10 hours ago, madmole said:

After how many hours has the clone army put you and your friends off? Hundreds or even thousands? Our job isn't to infinitely entertain old customers, it's to make a great game. By the time the zombies get old you would have to have a ton of hours. Minecraft has one zombie, a skeleton and a creeper, spider a blob and a few dozen other rare spawn enemies and made billions, it hasn't hurt their sales to have just one zombie skin.

It doesn't hurt because Minecraft have stylized graphic. Like dunno - Teen mutant ninja, Superhot, plants VS zombies.  Other hand - game similiar to Minecraft have many zombie variants +- 50 while this is just one type of many enemy types. Orc must die? many diffrent looking orcs

7dtd if i good understand target more realistic graphic right? 

Which low number enemies was problem in games in SH downpour. I remember even review of RE7 complaining about low enemy variants. 

Ofc - game can have army clones in this same time have realistic graphic without problem if it's explained - Seriopus Sam - most enemies are aliens or clones, KF - literaly clones.

I know that TFP is not big company - but Techland was critized for small number of zombie variants while this is much bigger company (and many props - like this same upper halve of body almost everywhere sometimes lying each other which looks rly bad) In dead island 2 situation is much better fortunatly. 

Guys - i understand low number of variants in 2013 - but now are higher standards. So if you want make target in more realistic style of graphic - more zombie variants are neccesary. The no more room in hell 2 devs had to add low number of zombie of variants because lack of money. But after finding publisher they add much more of them which is right decisions - well people looks and wear diffrent clothes right?

 

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[meganoth]

47 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

You'd be wrong.  Seeing the same zombies with different skins definitely adds variation. And you stop seeing the glaring similarities.

 

Madmole's logic is also wrong.  Minecraft works because it's ONE zombie skin, which our brain begins to discard.  Seeing 15 zeds and 9 are alike is more distracting than seeing 15 of the same.

 

He is right that they have better things to do tho.

 

Having code change the tint of a shirt material on spawn also wouldn't add any real overhead btw.

 

Been there, done it, just saying. 

 

Fight me. 😉

 

Why should I? Actual experience from actually seeing it was just what I was demanding. 😉

 

Each person is different, I look at the 15 zeds in this game as archetypes or classes (the same happens in many RPG games on PC) and I have practically zero problems with the sameness of each type. Just like I would look at the few different NPCs in minecraft as archetypes, same principle.

 

As such I would **probably** value a new zombie more than clothing variations on all zombies though this is just an uninformed  guess.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Trankitas]

4 minutes ago, Roland said:

It means he’s drawn some ideas on paper and has them in a binder. Rewatch the dev stream from this week and at the beginning there is a graphic that explains the process. Justin said that Madmole gives the artists a concept as a drawing and then they start modeling it and going through that whole flowchart. It’s a long flowchart. 
 

There are no zombie models that are practically done and just need to be added in. Nobody has been working on new zombies at all since they started working on bandits and player characters over a year ago. 

I genuinely think that having some of the dangerous encounters we face being against bandits will refresh the game in the way we need, they will add all sorts of encounters and ranged fights, right now you can technically go only melee with a couple points on the skill that governs that melee weapon of your choice and get away with it...I don't think that will be the case with 5 bandits shooting their AK's at you.

Sooo... I'm in favor of having new zombies as DLC's or post gold content, although having not memorizable zombies models will certainly add some spice to the game.

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

I don't think different skins (i.e. color of skin+color of clothes) makes entirely new zombies. Our brain works wonders in identifying similarities. In other words two identical Marlenes with diffferent outfits will still register as largely the same person. Also randomly mixing skin colors and clothes colors often produces combinations that look weird. Or at least very unfashionable 😉. My guess is that skin variation would work much better with nondescript featureless zombies than with the high quality recognizable zombies of this game. 

 

So in summary  I'd say without actually seeing that feature in the actual game we won't know what would be better, a few new zombies or a lot more skin variations.

 

it could help a lot - hazmat zombies in l4d2 or even zombie workers in Dying light 1 - this same zombie just diffrent colout of uniform. About colour of skin hm.. maybe if was some zombie were more green for rot would help but depend how this would be done ( at least this good work in DL1 

 

46 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

You'd be wrong.  Seeing the same zombies with different skins definitely adds variation. And you stop seeing the glaring similarities.

 

Madmole's logic is also wrong.  Minecraft works because it's ONE zombie skin, which our brain begins to discard.  Seeing 15 zeds and 9 are alike is more distracting than seeing 15 of the same.

 

He is right that they have better things to do tho.

 

Having code change the tint of a shirt material on spawn also wouldn't add any real overhead btw.

 

Been there, done it, just saying. 

 

Fight me. 😉

I agree about that

[Mumpfy]

the issue with "changing color" is that if you just go for a hue saturation change then sure, its a couple of clicks only but they end up looking weird. now if you go for a detailed re texturing of the models then you are working on each piece of clothing, skin, shoes, hair, separated. this implies a lot of work for either modders or devs.

 

that said modders are just getting partial stuff needed to do this properly, like the textures are already merged into one, and there is no ID maps to help you separate the parts of each texture.

 

In my case I can say I have spend way more time making an accurated selection mask for each bit of the texture to create my own ID maps in order to be able to replace those bits properly in substance painter, then in some cases depending on the changes you make you also have to alter the seconday maps, like normals, ao, etc.

 

this is great because it allows you to make a more decent variation, change properly the fabric materials, patterns, colors, not just a general hue change.

but in my case it takes several hrs just to make that ID maps selection because in some models is even quite hard to tell things appart while selecting.

 

sure, changing the materials is the fun part, tho counting ripping the asssets separating all maps from the RMOE texture, selecting and masking, reassambling the model you got a ton of work even before getting to re assamble the model back in unity to export.just saying that to try to get people to understand all the process involved. for either modders or devs to make what seems sometimes like a simple color change.

 

now... convince the pimps to share id maps and then that workflow for modders gets cut in time by less than half. lol. at least me.

and ive been working with photoshop professionally for over 20 years. so i do have some practise on it.

 

all that said, yeah... TFP adding more zombies variations or models would be the best outcome.

[Games'n'Grumble]

don't think I'm bragging, but I've made some simple models in my mod that use the same texture for everyone and randomly appear on zombies (so far it's only Zombie Bo) + 5 different colors = more or less a good variety (although they are still similar, of course). The main difficulty so far is only in setting the correct position relative to the body part.

[Matt115]

17 minutes ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

don't think I'm bragging, but I've made some simple models in my mod that use the same texture for everyone and randomly appear on zombies (so far it's only Zombie Bo) + 5 different colors = more or less a good variety (although they are still similar, of course). The main difficulty so far is only in setting the correct position relative to the body part.

Well looks good andrly looks like diffrent  zombies

[meganoth]

18 minutes ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

don't think I'm bragging, but I've made some simple models in my mod that use the same texture for everyone and randomly appear on zombies (so far it's only Zombie Bo) + 5 different colors = more or less a good variety (although they are still similar, of course). The main difficulty so far is only in setting the correct position relative to the body part.

 

Clothes variations look very good. Faces have lots of room for improvement 😎

 

[Matt115]

7 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Clothes variations look very good. Faces have lots of room for improvement 😎

 

That's true. But if there would many variants of colours for all zombies - it would help a lot. Btw. you know how to solve faces problems in realistic way? gasmask for some of zombies , bandanas, ski googles etc. So even if you have dunno - 50 this same zombie just diffrent colour but everyone in gasmask - this would solve clone syndrome

[saoron666]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

It means he’s drawn some ideas on paper and has them in a binder. Rewatch the dev stream from this week and at the beginning there is a graphic that explains the process. Justin said that Madmole gives the artists a concept as a drawing and then they start modeling it and going through that whole flowchart. It’s a long flowchart. 
 

There are no zombie models that are practically done and just need to be added in. Nobody has been working on new zombies at all since they started working on bandits and player characters over a year ago. 

such a shame that nobody been working on such important aspect!

the game is about zombies and only few zombies are in the game with same appearance , colors, textures etc..

over 100 new POI's but same zombies everywhere you go..how clever is that?

from  Day 1 you start the game to lets say Day 7000+ that same zombie roaming the area..

Bloodmoon or Normal day...again same zombies..

 

a bit diversity maybe?! 

 

i don't get it really, they put so much effort in other things like decors, doors, grass, etc but the one thing that we facing and dealing with in the game is a minority.

 

what makes a new POI interesting? exciting? eerie? The new paint on the wall and the new frame? or new zombies , foes and what you may encounter further in that POI?

T5 or T6..just multiply that same looking zombie X10 doesn't make it interesting..

 

I mean how many times can you get a thrill from seeing that same zombie over and over, jumping out of the closet or catching you by the toe lol

 

[Laz Man]

Something also to consider.  Some folks might be fine with different color clothes and such, but others may not.

 

Personally I love how each character is 100% different from each other.  Changing a shirt or color here and there may help "blur" the lines alittle bit but is a lower quality standard imo. 

 

Clone variants works in other games because you either can't seem them up close or the combat is so fast the player is never standing around long enough to care / notice.

 

If it was up to me, I would prefer the artists take the time to just make more unique zombies using the same approach as how the current HD set was made.

[saoron666]

19 hours ago, faatal said:

That would require a clothing mask texture being made for each zombie for the tint areas or additional textures made. Either approach would push up memory use, so that would need to be evaluated too. The artists are busy working on all the previously mentioned art.

Completely different people. The various water changes were done by three different programmers, who can not do zombie art.

Then, why not get different people for the zombie and the art since it is the core of the game?! i would like to know if i go in that house or area i will face much stronger and deadlier foes than the same stripper running around the entire map. or that same dog from resident evil...

 

every POI needs its own foes.

 

every mission should have as well their own foes.

 

every biom should have their own foes.

 

i dont know how the T5 missions for nests will work but that as well will need different foes.

 

a Team just for zombies is a must! its like having a car manufacturing and not have a team to design new cars and models...lets sell that same car over and over for 15 years.

see how interesting it will become lol

 

 

[Blake_]

14 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Something also to consider.  Some folks might be fine with different color clothes and such, but others may not.

 

Personally I love how each character is 100% different from each other.  Changing a shirt or color here and there may help "blur" the lines alittle bit but is a lower quality standard imo. 

 

Clone variants works in other games because you either can't seem them up close or the combat is so fast the player is never standing around long enough to care / notice.

 

If it was up to me, I would prefer the artists take the time to just make more unique zombies using the same approach as how the current HD set was made.

Well that's an unpopular opinion. I would be ok with zd variation, as long as every variation uses textures or partial textures already in the game, in order to avoid any memory increase. New clothing tints and models with the same reutilized texture would also help a lot. 

Sure, unique zds are cool. But they get old fast. And not as late as Madmole said, but 10-20 hours in you can already feel the heavy hit of repetition, as unique as they might be.

 

Zd with posts, barbed wires, caps, glasses, parts of player armor... all of that wouldn't generate any extra memory and would make the game way better than it is.

[Ricowan]

9 hours ago, Riamus said:

Even if you were to add only 3 skins per zombie (skins being either different clothing or different colors for the same clothing or different hair styles or skin tones or genders, etc.), that triples the variety you see in the game.

 

This would also triple the amount of graphics memory required for each zombie.  Fatal has already stated that they're out of room, memory-wise, for the game on certain platforms/graphics cards.

 

From what I understand, each zombie currently just has one texture image that is mapped to the model.  Changing the color of a t-shirt means duplicating the entire zombie texture, then recoloring the shirt.  Changing to a different system with multiple textures would be a TON of work, and would still require more graphics memory to store all of the variations.

[saoron666]

18 hours ago, madmole said:

We can ALWAYS add more zombies. Adding more zombies doesn't put a check mark on the many empty checkboxes we have on the gold list.

Most of the new outfits look the same on each sex.

Thank you for reading my post and your time.

means a lot that you care what fans want.

 

I know it doesn't put a checkmark on the "what to do list" but adding more zombies trust me it WILL make a difference!

it will turn the new POI's much more interesting to discover!

 

humans are fascinated in discovering new areas and beyond for a reason. we need to see and interact with new foes or NPC and see and hunt new preys.

if every girl or guy looked the same then when you walk on the street you wont look at anyone anymore!

 

i can walk with a redhead and see a Blonde girl pass by i will look at her, now the blonde girl comes in many shapes and form! so 1 blonde does not end there since 1000 blonde girl next to each other are still interesting to see since they all different from each other.

 

same goes for the redhead, shes your girlfriend for 10 years, but when you see another redhead, she is as new as day 1 cause shes different in form and shape and different clothes and colors..

 

all im saying is that new zombies is a MUST, it will Boost your A21 exponentially.

 

 

[Mumpfy]

that really depends on the implementation, one zed is actually composed by several texture maps combined into a material. now say there is the albedo or base color, then they use one combined map for secondary maps RMOE which contains one map on each channel of teh image, so on one image only you have roughness, metallic, ao, emition maps togheter, and then the normal map separated.

 

now depending on how you would implement this variations you could just need 1 more albedo map for variety but still use all the other maps for them all. so each variaton wouldnt add all the maps needed for the original zombie.

 

that said this would be about file size into the game, i have no clue how that translates to performance, and thats why the pimps cant do what modders do, because they need to concider much more stuff when adding something.

 

that said fo them to drop a new alpha with just zombie variants or new models would clearly be a win. because most poeple wants that. so there must be a reason they dont do it yet, and yes, we all hope is just a yet and eventually they add some.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Mumpfy (see edit history)

[Matt115]

28 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Something also to consider.  Some folks might be fine with different color clothes and such, but others may not.

 

Personally I love how each character is 100% different from each other.  Changing a shirt or color here and there may help "blur" the lines alittle bit but is a lower quality standard imo. 

 

Clone variants works in other games because you either can't seem them up close or the combat is so fast the player is never standing around long enough to care / notice.

 

If it was up to me, I would prefer the artists take the time to just make more unique zombies using the same approach as how the current HD set was made.

Ofc. New variants would be much diffrent but you know "more expensive! need more time to do" etc. so same folks with diffrent colour clothes is not perfect solution but... this at least something. don't expect 30 new zombie variants so this is the lesser evil - and improve quality not lower them - it's just like pepper for dish

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

don't think I'm bragging, but I've made some simple models in my mod that use the same texture for everyone and randomly appear on zombies (so far it's only Zombie Bo) + 5 different colors = more or less a good variety (although they are still similar, of course). The main difficulty so far is only in setting the correct position relative to the body part.

  

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I don't think different skins (i.e. color of skin+color of clothes) makes entirely new zombies. Our brain works wonders in identifying similarities. In other words two identical Marlenes with diffferent outfits will still register as largely the same person. Also randomly mixing skin colors and clothes colors often produces combinations that look weird. Or at least very unfashionable 😉. My guess is that skin variation would work much better with nondescript featureless zombies than with the high quality recognizable zombies of this game. 

 

So in summary  I'd say without actually seeing that feature in the actual game we won't know what would be better, a few new zombies or a lot more skin variations.

 

I don't think the zombies should look entirely different if we're just using skins.  We want to know who we are fighting.  We don't want to see a someone in work clothes who suddenly shoots green goo at you like the cop because we are left not know who we are fighting and what strategies we want to use.  But having variety means when you look at a wall of zombies, they don't look exactly alike.  I've had 7 or 8 of the same zombie attack me in a POI at once and it just looks bad.  If it was the same zombie with variations in clothes/colors, then it would look better.  As shown in the shot above, different clothes makes a huge difference.  If you look at the same image with all 5 of them looking just like the first (default) zombie, then you lose a lot of variance.  Sure, you say the faces need work, but you don't have to change the faces if you don't want to.  Just that change in clothes is huge.  But even changing just colors- lumberjack with red plaid, green plaid, blue plaid; office guy with black suit, tan suit, brown suit; etc. - would look much better.  It is okay to easily recognize who we are fighting and know they are the same zombie.  But having variance makes a huge difference.

 

Yes, more unique zombies are great!!  However, you're only going to get a small number of unique zombies added where this provides for far more zombies variations.  Having a combination of both new zombies and zombie skins is the best option by far.  If they will add 50 new zombies (not including the tier variations), then we don't need skins.  But they won't.  Maybe we'll see half a dozen more if we're lucky.  I doubt more than that.  Sure, that's great.  And the bandits will help a lot.  But it's still very quickly duplicated when you start blood moon or POIs.

[madmole]

2 hours ago, Guppycur said:

You'd be wrong.  Seeing the same zombies with different skins definitely adds variation. And you stop seeing the glaring similarities.

 

Madmole's logic is also wrong.  Minecraft works because it's ONE zombie skin, which our brain begins to discard.  Seeing 15 zeds and 9 are alike is more distracting than seeing 15 of the same.

 

He is right that they have better things to do tho.

 

Having code change the tint of a shirt material on spawn also wouldn't add any real overhead btw.

 

Been there, done it, just saying. 

 

Fight me. 😉

I'd be ok with tint variations.

It's not that we also wouldn't want to see more zombies, it's a matter of it would delay gold even further and we're focusing on going gold.

It's one of those things that would not move the needle on sales even .01% too. New customers don't care if we add more zombies. I'm not that interested in more zombies without new behaviors. I wrote up a bunch of great zombie designs with behaviors but coders don't have time so more zombies or variations is just meh, and doesn't get us closer to gold or more sales so selling the idea is impossible, as well as we have to make room in the memory footprint for all these new bandits yet.

At best we could add a few and put them into specific biomes so that memory can handle it, and it would still be the same problem, repetitive in each biome.

Maybe we can leverage the character system to add a new zombie head to a player outfit and make some survivor zombies easily using the already in memory character outfits for some tougher armored zombies. These are more draw calls than the current zombies though and bigger textures etc and wouldn't be the best use of resources. Ideally we could start the next game from scratch using the system. I think the skeleton is different too though so animations become a problem. It's complex and like I said, it isn't moving the needle at all on sales, it just makes you veterans happy.

Maybe we can use it for the next game if planned from the beginning.

[Petrol_Forever]

Just popping in to say I can't wait for the A21, the changes look promising so far! Keep it up TFP, I love ya guys!

[Matt115]

4 minutes ago, madmole said:

I'd be ok with tint variations.

It's not that we also wouldn't want to see more zombies, it's a matter of it would delay gold even further and we're focusing on going gold.

It's one of those things that would not move the needle on sales even .01% too. New customers don't care if we add more zombies. I'm not that interested in more zombies without new behaviors. I wrote up a bunch of great zombie designs with behaviors but coders don't have time so more zombies or variations is just meh, and doesn't get us closer to gold or more sales so selling the idea is impossible, as well as we have to make room in the memory footprint for all these new bandits yet.

At best we could add a few and put them into specific biomes so that memory can handle it, and it would still be the same problem, repetitive in each biome.

Maybe we can leverage the character system to add a new zombie head to a player outfit and make some survivor zombies easily using the already in memory character outfits for some tougher armored zombies. These are more draw calls than the current zombies though and bigger textures etc and wouldn't be the best use of resources. Ideally we could start the next game from scratch using the system. I think the skeleton is different too though so animations become a problem. It's complex and like I said, it isn't moving the needle at all on sales, it just makes you veterans happy.

Maybe we can use it for the next game if planned from the beginning.

Em you guys wrote that next game won't be 7dtd 2 for sure. 

But if there will be 7dtd 2 - similiar system to l4d2 would be the option to be honest.

If you want to add paid DLC - make veterans happy is more important that focus on new players - because they will came for while and give shortly after so this mean they won't buy DLC

BTW. @madmole

 

Combat – Encounter over 50 unique zombie archetypes including special infected with unique behaviors and attacks

 

is this still information actual or outdated?  If still actual - this mean adding more zombies will make you closer to gold

[Laz Man]

43 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

Well that's an unpopular opinion. I would be ok with zd variation, as long as every variation uses textures or partial textures already in the game, in order to avoid any memory increase. New clothing tints and models with the same reutilized texture would also help a lot. 

Sure, unique zds are cool. But they get old fast. And not as late as Madmole said, but 10-20 hours in you can already feel the heavy hit of repetition, as unique as they might be.

 

Zd with posts, barbed wires, caps, glasses, parts of player armor... all of that wouldn't generate any extra memory and would make the game way better than it is.

 

Everyone has their level of immersion / standards.  For me, If I saw 5 boe's with different clothing on running at me, at first it would feel like different zombies until you eventually realize its the same zombie and makes you wish for different faces.....then different body sizes......then.....different zombies all together.  😅

 

So instead of wasting time with half measures, go all in with 100% unique zombies with awesome characteristics. 😎

Edited April 21, 2023 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Matt115]

2 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

 

Everyone has their level of immersion / standards.  For me, If I saw 5 boe's with different clothing on running at me, at first it would feel like different zombies until you eventually realize its the same zombie and makes you wish for different faces.....then different body sizes......then.....different zombies all together.  😁

That's why just diffrent colour is like spice. not main dish - in l4d2 if you check models you will see that number of faces is pretty low - but diffrent clothes, dirt, blood etc. solve that problem

 

46 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

Well that's an unpopular opinion. I would be ok with zd variation, as long as every variation uses textures or partial textures already in the game, in order to avoid any memory increase. New clothing tints and models with the same reutilized texture would also help a lot. 

Sure, unique zds are cool. But they get old fast. And not as late as Madmole said, but 10-20 hours in you can already feel the heavy hit of repetition, as unique as they might be.

 

Zd with posts, barbed wires, caps, glasses, parts of player armor... all of that wouldn't generate any extra memory and would make the game way better than it is.

more and more people have 16 GB of ram. So this allow for much more.

Guys it's not 2013 anymore 

[Blake_]

17 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

more and more people have 16 GB of ram. So this allow for much more.

Guys it's not 2013 anymore 

That's not the only issue. 7dtd will run ok with 16 dual channel ram, the problem are draw calls, you need a powerful CPU and fast communication between RAM and CPU to be able to handle these things. GPUs are already there, heck with a rtx 3070 you will be ok on ultra, but CPUs are not yet good enough in their main core to handle 7dtd without -30/-60fps moments. You can try and buy the 13900ks with a RTX 4090ti and it will still drop 100 fps the moment you get into a heavy entity/shadow situation. Sure, optimizations help, but it will take at least a couple of years and 8000mhz ddr5 ram+ 6ghz CPUs to make the game resilient enough to not notice drops as much. This is how much ahead of its time is this technology.

 

So a simple zd variation system will do for now.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

49 minutes ago, madmole said:

I'd be ok with tint variations.

It's not that we also wouldn't want to see more zombies, it's a matter of it would delay gold even further and we're focusing on going gold.

It's one of those things that would not move the needle on sales even .01% too. New customers don't care if we add more zombies. I'm not that interested in more zombies without new behaviors. I wrote up a bunch of great zombie designs with behaviors but coders don't have time so more zombies or variations is just meh, and doesn't get us closer to gold or more sales so selling the idea is impossible, as well as we have to make room in the memory footprint for all these new bandits yet.

At best we could add a few and put them into specific biomes so that memory can handle it, and it would still be the same problem, repetitive in each biome.

Maybe we can leverage the character system to add a new zombie head to a player outfit and make some survivor zombies easily using the already in memory character outfits for some tougher armored zombies. These are more draw calls than the current zombies though and bigger textures etc and wouldn't be the best use of resources. Ideally we could start the next game from scratch using the system. I think the skeleton is different too though so animations become a problem. It's complex and like I said, it isn't moving the needle at all on sales, it just makes you veterans happy.

Maybe we can use it for the next game if planned from the beginning.

 

Your reasoning is bad, your assessment is presumptuous, and that attitude is terrible 🤦🏻‍♂️

Edited April 21, 2023 by Beelzebubs Ghost (see edit history)