Version 1.0 (Alpha 22) Dev Diary

[faatal]

55 minutes ago, Chaton Noir said:

1) Will 1.2 be the last update before 2.0?

2) The "big optimizations" promised on Twitter will be in 1.2/1.X or 2.0?

3) And by the way, why are you numbering updates like that? For 1.1, 1.0.1 would be much more suitable, and 1.X is perceived as a major update. I thought 2.0, 3.0, etc. would be called 1.1, 1.2, etc.

 

And welcome back, you haven't been here for a long time😀

1 There could be a 1.3.

2 There are big and small optimizations we are working on. A big one is the merging of the weapon camera into the main camera, which is giving a 15% to 20% performance boost or even higher in some cases. The merge effected a variety of things with hands/weapons poking through walls and FOV and shadow differences, but is mostly complete and should be in 1.2.

3 People on the team did not like the smaller numbers and I don't care as those numbers are free.

 

Thanks, I was laying low, recovering from 1.0 and getting some of my days off.

[FramFramson]

On 9/26/2024 at 9:47 PM, Arez said:

HEY! 

 

Who moved Trader Bob's cash register to the other side of his window?!?!

 

I can't rob him anymore!!!

 

Who robs the register when the friggin' whole ATM is right there?

[Arez]

I don't remember if this was mentioned anywhere, but for the first time today I created a 2k map. Only one Trader spawned (Hugh) and none of the POIs were below tier 3 so all I could do were buried supply quests until I unlocked tier 3. 

 

It was interesting nonetheless. 

7 hours ago, faatal said:

That bug is one of many things I am working on currently, but it is not a simple fix. Basically you can't get too far away (about 30m) from min script spawned zombies or they will despawn while min script is still waiting for them to die. They do need to despawn in some cases, so it gets complicated. Hopefully fixed in 1.2.

What if they were made to not despawn? What would be the consequences of that? And would the consequences be worse than not being able to finish the quest? If not, maybe that could at least be a temporary fix for the time being?

[Chaton Noir]

19 hours ago, faatal said:

1 There could be a 1.3.

2 There are big and small optimizations we are working on. A big one is the merging of the weapon camera into the main camera, which is giving a 15% to 20% performance boost or even higher in some cases. The merge effected a variety of things with hands/weapons poking through walls and FOV and shadow differences, but is mostly complete and should be in 1.2.

3 People on the team did not like the smaller numbers and I don't care as those numbers are free.

 

Thanks, I was laying low, recovering from 1.0 and getting some of my days off.

I take it camera merging will mainly improve GPU performance? But the main bottle neck is the CPU, as Unity loads it pretty low and the GPU is idle. What will be improved for the CPU in the future? Or will cameras merging improve performance also in scenarios where performance is CPU-limited?

And do you plan to update to Unity 6 in the future when it becomes LTS? Because it and Unity 2023 also have performance improvements.

Edited Wednesday at 03:38 PM by Chaton Noir (see edit history)

[faatal]

49 minutes ago, Chaton Noir said:

I take it camera merging will mainly improve GPU performance? But the main bottle neck is the CPU, as Unity loads it pretty low and the GPU is idle. What will be improved for the CPU in the future? Or will cameras merging improve performance also in scenarios where performance is CPU-limited?

And do you plan to update to Unity 6 in the future when it becomes LTS? Because it and Unity 2023 also have performance improvements.

When I say 15% to 20%+ boost, that is typical FPS boost, not some special case. Each camera uses a lot of main thread CPU for setup and culling.

 

Unity 6 LTS update is the plan. Much of those U6 perf gains are for SRP (HDRP), which would require a full graphics system update (shaders, lights, postprocessing), so not anytime soon for 7days or maybe ever. We are doing HDRP in our next Unity game, so we are going through those issues now and they are huge.

[Chaton Noir]

47 minutes ago, faatal said:

When I say 15% to 20%+ boost, that is typical FPS boost, not some special case. Each camera uses a lot of main thread CPU for setup and culling.

 

Unity 6 LTS update is the plan. Much of those U6 perf gains are for SRP (HDRP), which would require a full graphics system update (shaders, lights, postprocessing), so not anytime soon for 7days or maybe ever. We are doing HDRP in our next Unity game, so we are going through those issues now and they are huge.

As far as I know, TFP is developing 2-3 more games. One of them might be on UE5. By another game on Unity, do you mean 7 DBM or the 2nd game that is being developed by TFP and not iLLOGIKA? And if so, why would such a small studio need 2 engines? Isn't it easier to work with 1 engine?

Edited Wednesday at 05:13 PM by Chaton Noir (see edit history)

[Adam the Waster]

I really like the changes for knuckles being cloth belts 

 

I do hope we get more items someday to make progression longer 

 

Like cloth, leather, scrap, iron, steel, steel parts, maybe mechanical if they wanna go crazy 

[Roland]

17 hours ago, Arez said:

What if they were made to not despawn? What would be the consequences of that?

My guess is that irradiated feral wight you slammed off the top of the building and sent flying a block away but didn’t quite kill wouldn’t despawn and you wouldn’t be able to kill it and complete the quest. 

[Laz Man]

5 hours ago, Chaton Noir said:

As far as I know, TFP is developing 2-3 more games. One of them might be on UE5. By another game on Unity, do you mean 7 DBM or the 2nd game that is being developed by TFP and not iLLOGIKA? And if so, why would such a small studio need 2 engines? Isn't it easier to work with 1 engine?

He is not referring to 7 Days Blood moons.  That game will definitely not be on Unity 6 at least not on initial release.

[Chaton Noir]

2 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

He is not referring to 7 Days Blood moons.  That game will definitely not be on Unity 6 at least not on initial release.

So there's a new game on Unity 2022 in 2025??? Or 2026?

[faatal]

22 minutes ago, Chaton Noir said:

So there's a new game on Unity 2022 in 2025??? Or 2026?

There is another game that will probably be U6+/HDRP, but that is years away, so don't get excited now.

[Chaton Noir]

20 minutes ago, faatal said:

There is another game that will probably be U6+/HDRP, but that is years away, so don't get excited now.

Wait, I'm already confused about TFP projects. You were just referring to one Unity project that this whole conversation was about, right? Is the second project already on UE5? Or do you have 2 unannounced projects on Unity + 1 on UE5? Or 1 on Unity and 1 on UE?

[beerfly]

43 minutes ago, Chaton Noir said:

Wait, I'm already confused about TFP projects. 

A one is about a zombie sequel about The Bold and The Beauty TV series, but a brutal game, much more gore.

 

Don`t tell anyone btw

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, Chaton Noir said:

Wait, I'm already confused about TFP projects. You were just referring to one Unity project that this whole conversation was about, right? Is the second project already on UE5? Or do you have 2 unannounced projects on Unity + 1 on UE5? Or 1 on Unity and 1 on UE?

What second project? And where have you heard them say their next game will be UE5?  They have only talked about one project after this game as far as I have seen, and this was the first confirmation I've seen about the engine for it.  We are, of course, ignoring Bloodmoons, which isn't their project.

[Arez]

4 hours ago, Roland said:

My guess is that irradiated feral wight you slammed off the top of the building and sent flying a block away but didn’t quite kill wouldn’t despawn and you wouldn’t be able to kill it and complete the quest. 

I'm confused. I thought the problem is when the player moves too far away. And why have quest zombies despawn and go back to sleep, if you move to far away, anyway? They should just continue to hunt you down until one of you are dead. I'd imagine that's what most people would expect to happen.

[Roland]

Just now, Arez said:

I'm confused. I thought the problem is when the player moves too far away. And why have quest zombies despawn and go back to sleep, if you move to far away, anyway? They should just continue to hunt you down until one of you are dead. I'd imagine that's what most people would expect to happen.

like I said, Im just guessing but is there really any end state difference between the player moving too far away or the zombie?  I’ve seen where quest zombies have been knocked back and beyond the perimeter of the questable area and seen their red dot disappear from the compass after a short time (they didn’t die from the fall). I didn’t fail the quest so my guess is they despawned. 

[Riamus]

Yeah, zombies knocked off a skyscraper don't always return properly because you're no longer within range for them to target you and they go into wander mode, which can lead them outside the questable area, making it impossible to complete the quest.  By despawning, they end up back within the area and you just have to get them to spawn again to complete the quest.  It's basically a safety net.  Granted, it would also be possible (though probably more work) to get zombies to properly return to where they spawned or where you are if they can detect you instead of wandering off.  But with how things currently stand, you need the despawn mechanic or you'll have far more problems with quests that can't be completed.

[faatal]

I've seen some confusion on the net effect of the stealth changes in 1.1, so for clarity:

Overall player stealth was nerfed as it was OP.

buff - "Stealth is less affected by player movement and ramps up over time"

nerf - "Balanced stealth effectiveness for all combinations of perks, armor and light levels"

nerf - "Reduced distance from and radius that AI picks to investigate near the target"
nerf - "Balanced stealth world and block ambient light"

nerf - "Balanced player stealth enemy search duration reduction from perks and armor"

buff - "Increased Assassin and Rogue outfit sneak effectiveness based on other stealth calculations and balancing adjustments"

nerf - "Increased bear and dire wolf sight and hearing"

13 minutes ago, Arez said:

I'm confused. I thought the problem is when the player moves too far away. And why have quest zombies despawn and go back to sleep, if you move to far away, anyway? They should just continue to hunt you down until one of you are dead. I'd imagine that's what most people would expect to happen.

However a zombies get somewhere away from all players, the effect is the same. They despawn. Zombies also don't hunt you. They may come at you initially if they see you or are attack triggered, but that does time out. Zombies are expensive, so we don't want a bunch of them wandering around. Tying Min Script to the despawn/respawn mechanic will be the fix.

[Arez]

12 minutes ago, faatal said:

Zombies are expensive

Speaking of which, if TFP were to link up with NECA and offer a line of screen accurate 7 Days zombie figures for $35 a pop, I'm pretty sure there are enough lunatics like me that would be willing to buy them to make the venture worth it.

 

Just putting that out there.

[Chaton Noir]

5 hours ago, Riamus said:

What second project? And where have you heard them say their next game will be UE5?  They have only talked about one project after this game as far as I have seen, and this was the first confirmation I've seen about the engine for it.  We are, of course, ignoring Bloodmoons, which isn't their project.

1. There are new vacancies in 2021. It was stated that people are needed for 7 DTD and two new projects.
2. The job listing included UE/C++ developers.
3. The job listing was also for Unity/C# developers, which would be good if they still knew how to work with UE/C++.
4. They were talking about "Unreal Game".

So they have at least 2 projects, UE1 and U1. And maybe they have UE2 or U2 project.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 05:17 AM by Chaton Noir (see edit history)

[YourMirror]

4 hours ago, Chaton Noir said:

1. There are new vacancies in 2021. It was stated that people are needed for 7 DTD and two new projects.
2. The job listing included UE/C++ developers.
3. The job listing was also for Unity/C# developers, which would be good if they still knew how to work with UE/C++.
4. They were talking about "Unreal Game".

So they have at least 2 projects, UE1 and U1. And maybe they have UE2 or U2 project.

 

 

Im guessing that is none of your business. What could the info bring you anyways? Control OCD?

[Chaton Noir]

2 hours ago, YourMirror said:

Im guessing that is none of your business. What could the info bring you anyways? Control OCD?

I am interested in the future of TFP and all their projects, so this information is important to me.

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, Chaton Noir said:

1. There are new vacancies in 2021. It was stated that people are needed for 7 DTD and two new projects.
2. The job listing included UE/C++ developers.
3. The job listing was also for Unity/C# developers, which would be good if they still knew how to work with UE/C++.
4. They were talking about "Unreal Game".

So they have at least 2 projects, UE1 and U1. And maybe they have UE2 or U2 project.

 

 

 

I see you seem to understand it, so why inventing another UE2 or U2?

 

Reread what Faatal said, he only refered to just the one new Unity game they are developing when speaking about  HDPR. Besides that there is an UE game being developed by a separate team they build up from scratch it seems (and the UE game may be contract work, just a guess). Nothing more. The third game is 7D2D as it still isn't finished.

 

Edited Thursday at 01:42 PM by meganoth (see edit history)

[Chaton Noir]

5 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

I see you seem to understand it, so why inventing another UE2 or U2?

 

Reread what Faatal said, he only refered to just the one new Unity game they are developing when speaking about  HDPR. Besides that there is an UE game being developed by a separate team they build up from scratch it seems (and the UE game may be contract work, just a guess). Nothing more. The third game is 7D2D as it still isn't finished.

 

Yes, you're right. I heard the suggestion that a third project was possible, and I got hooked on it. I reviewed the available information once again and finally figured it out. I'm just not at all sure when I talk about future TFP projects.

[Morloc]

20 hours ago, faatal said:

nerf - "Increased bear and dire wolf sight and hearing"

 

You sure did.

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc 💀