Status Report - 30 Jun 2015

[SMoss 2101]

Greetings Survivors,

 

While development keeps moving along as usual, a lot of you have patiently been waiting for info on the new renderer, and for this week's Status Report Lead Producer Brian Hicks touches upon that very subject. Also, Senior Designer Jan Tomasik gives us some input on the ingame FOV; the theory and thought process behind the design solutions as well as decisions for the current iteration of FOV.

 

For this week we also present you with a link to the DayZ Trello board where Lead Artist Chris Torchia provides us with a small peek at environment updates, and lastly, we have a small feature on one of DayZ's content creators - Super Dan.

 

 

Contents This Week

• Development Board Spotlight
• Dev Update/Hicks
• Dev Update/Jan
• Community Spotlight: Super Dan

 

 

Development Board Spotlight

 

 

 

Dev Update/Hicks

 

Greetings Survivors,

 

This week we'll touch on two topics. We'll start off discussing the work ongoing with the new renderer for Enfusion, and then wrap up discussing the current behaviour and mechanics behind sprinting, holding breath, and so on.

 

 

Players who have been actively following the development of DayZ are aware of the large task the engine team undertook to separate the legacy RV renderer from the simulation, and replace it with a more modular and updated version. The task itself of creating a new renderer is not huge, the length and weight of the task is related primarily to:

 

- Separating the legacy renderer from the simulation
    - Ensuring the separation is complete, as the RV engine and its functions tied to it are extensive

 

Once the above was complete, the new renderer itself was broken into three primary modules. (Bear with us, this can be moderately technical)

 

* Pipeline module (1)
    * the pipeline of objects rendering is new (defines the "way" how the objects are moving from entity in world to set of rendering commands)
    * is responsible to prepare meshes to be rendered
    * is multi-threaded 
    * filling of pipeline will be also multi-threaded, in phase of testing and debugging

 

* Material system module (2)
    * objects are rendered using new material system, old one is still present to have the comparison
    * each mesh has assigned a material (not rvmat) with material class which is responsible for it's rendering
    * setting of material is editable in workbench editor and you see real-time the changes in render
    * each material class was written from scratch, visualisation currently as much similar as possible to old render but now we can add simply new features (like PBR)
    * huge simplification for filling GPU command buffers, can be easily sorted to minimize changes in command buffers
    * all renderable game objects have now representation in material class 
    
* High level rendering API module (3)
    * GPU API is DX11 for now (With DX 12 supporting coming later)
    * implementation of GPU API now hidden behind rendering API, no one is allowed to use direct GPU API commands
        * it allows us to add new GPU API like DX12, XBOX one, PS4...much easier
    * Initial implementation done, currently in testing and bug fixing phase (optimization still in progress but looks promising)

 
    
In addition:    

 

* GUI manager    
    * GUI pipeline and rendering system is completely new    and different from the one in original RV engine
    * GUI layouts will be defined in workbench using graphic editor not by config system (huge improvement for designers)
    * rendering works, currently debugging and working on the editor
    * In a future experimental build it'll be possible to try it using command line switch (startup switch)
    
* other notes    
    * postprocesses were completely rewritten into new system of effects
    * more worlds can be renderered in one frame, it allows to create independent scenes 
        * needed for workbench
        * usable also in game to create e.g. mirrors, cameras...

As work on the new renderer continues and we look at our plans for the eventual push to experimental we have several goals:

 

- Testing partnerships with Intel, AMD, and nVidia to ensure compatability with market leader and average hardware configurations
- Marked performance for gameplay in large cities (Elektro, Cherno, Novod, Severograd, Berezino, etc)
        
Next up - There has been a good deal of discussion, and questions on exactly how hold breath, lung capacity, and dispersion when characters are tired. Below we have a few example videos with debug data on screen so you can see the specific values.

 

 

http://youtu.be/nxSjqXGpF6M

In the first video you see the user start out stationary - not tired, and begin to hold his breath. With the inaccuracy value falling sharply upon holding his breath, as the character continues to hold his breath and his lung capacity drains - the inaccuracy slowly starts climbing.

 

 

http://youtu.be/RbURyZ0s9XA

With the second video, we have a character who starts off tired (has been sprinting for an extended duration - 90 to 120 seconds of solid sprinting) who takes a knee (supported firing position) as his tired value decreases, his lung capacity increases - and he begins to hold his breath. 
Mind you, this is only how it performs now (on 0.57 stable) and this is prior to the implementation of weight and character stamina. That said, we would love to hear your thoughts on the current behavior of the mechanic. Please make sure to head over to the Official DayZ forums and discuss this in the latest Status Report discussion thread! 

 

Finally - the gameplay programming team has made headway on the annoying issue of sounds playing globally (splitting ammo, bandages, etc) and 0.58 should see the issue resolved! If you happen to still manage to repro, please open a ticket at feedback.dayzgame.com!

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

Dev Update/Jan

 

Since there's been some discussion regarding changes in the character zoom mechanic I decided to jump in and explain what are we trying to achieve. 

 

We should probably start by asking the question "Why have a characters-eye zoom in the first place?". It's the old problem with emulating a 3D world on insufficient hardware. The human field of vision (fov) is around 190° and the area where the vision cones of both eyes overlap is around 100°.  Unfortunately, most of todays monitors viewed from a regular distance usually tend to cover only 45°of human fov in real life. This means that if you want for target on screen to appear in real-life size you are only able to display around ~1/2 of what you would see in reality, stereoscopically. 

 

And so as a designer you have to choose - Should I display objects in the distance properly but sacrifice the overall vision or set the fov to 100° but deform the whole picture? The trick of Arma is actually not to choose and instead introduce an "eye zoom" instead. This way you can keep the surrounding awareness by setting the default fov to 100°, but when necessary to perceive a depth of field properly occurs (ie. you are shooting), you can "zoom in" to 45°. 


0.57 Unzoomed Eye Vision


0.57 Eye Zoom
 

But is it ok to force fix a fov on players? We thought not. Not only because 100° fov does not feel right to everyone, but some players can't even physically play with it. (Motion sickness, performance of PC, different monitor setup...). So the FOV slider was introduced and with it multiple problems we are ironing out now.
The most important step was to even out players by moving fixed fov to ironsights. This way you can most of the time play with whatever fov you like, but when the fov becomes a matter of life or death (shoot outs) it is set same for everyone to keep the game fair. 

 

We know that zoomed fov or ironsights must be 45° because it emulates the eye and we stated earlier that 45° is realistic. But what should the unzoomed fov be? It can't be higher than a number the player can set through FOV slider. (This way would going into iron sights actually shows the unzoomed picture which is definitely not something you would desire). So the fov of ironsights should be also the the smallest fov we allow players to set by the fov slider. 

We decided to set range of fov slider from 60° to 90°. 


0.58 Eye Zoom

It's important to keep in mind, that double pressing + or - extends it to 45° or 105°, so the range is not so small as it might appears. It also doesn't matter what is your current fov - double pressing + key will always set it to 45°. This means you can quickly switch between observing surroundings and focusing on objects "modes", while being able to play with your prefered fov for most of the time. I belive this descision helps equalize players and reduce fov slider abuse. 

 

Of course all those settings are opened to iteration and changes if they prove to be wrong, or they just feel bad. 

- Jan Tomasik / Senior Designer

 

 

Community Spotlight: Super Dan

 

Hey all,

It's been a bit of a hard decision in selecting which content creator to feature for this week what with all the great stuff produced by players! For this week though, we present to you the work done by: Super Dan

 

Super Dan has created a good amount of DayZ videos where he showcases plenty of different player interactions as he meets random players across Chernarus. The first video for this week shows the choices players sometimes have to make when finding themselves in a tight spot (it could also be the choices that some players make when they just want to be mean towards others, heh). Nice enough though that Super Dan's victim is a good sport about it all :)

 

In Super Dan's library, I also came across the following video in which he uses the chance to encorporate a bit of cinematic feel into his video based on the experiences he has with a couple of other players. It's all fun and games until you start outliving all the players that you come across. Nicely done Super Dan!

 

As the last video for this week, we bring you Super Dan's video “A Normal Day in Chernarus”. What starts out as a seemingly friendly meeting of random players takes a funny turn for one of the survivors as he tries to form an alliance with another one of the guys:

Oh, you Judas, you! Best to brush up on your persuasion skills.

 

As always, if interested in more, please feel free to follow Super Dan via his Twitter and Youtube accounts:

• http://twitter.com/xdannyboix

• http://www.youtube.com/user/Dannystevo100

 

Header image credit: Raptorz

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

First

[SMoss 2101]

Fir*, oh goddam you!

[degoe 20]

Hey, just read part of the status report and wanted to share what I think about the holding breath mecanic.

 

Its pretty impressive, way more complicated and dynamic than I anticipated. Really good to see so much going on behind the scene. Also, good status report overall!! massive improvement.

On the tired status I feel you should be able to get more tired then now. Maybe to have aim be totally out of whack (and many other disabling effects) when you get extrememely tired, also I feel atm you get tired too fast. Did you do IRL tests to calibrate this.

I feel I could run furter and be reasonably/more accurate than I am in dayz. Please note I have terrible stamina irl. The "random" crosshair movement atm is to predictable, the pattern is the same everytime and people are exploiting that.

What would you think about RL testing such things as stamina? Except for having to run yourself :P

 

 

ps. do attachments like stocks and bipods drastically reduce weapon sway atm?

Edited June 30, 2015 by degoe

[Killsteal 3]

I really dont agree with how the way hold breath, lung capacity and sway is working right now. I would like to see the time off regaining breath to be shortened and the amount of sway you get when out of breath massively reduced. At the moment taking shots after running is way to hard, its rather annoying to wait for breath unable to act.

[boneboys 7988]

Silly Devs are silly.

post# 1 is Mr Moss.

 

Nice report btw !

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Now if we could just get as many people discussing this here as is on reddit. -_-

[Survivor_Ted 269]

 

In the first video you see the user start out stationary - not tired, and begin to hold his breath. With the inaccuracy value falling sharply upon holding his breath, as the character continues to hold his breath and his lung capacity drains - the inaccuracy slowly starts climbing.

 

 

What video?

 

EDIT: Got it.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Survivor_Ted

[Coheed_IV 381]

Great explanations on everything. I really feel that weapon sway/stamina works and feels fair when there is weapon stabilization. This allows player choice within the situation. It will always feel imposed and not as well rounded without it.

The addition of stabilization to A3, for me was a complete game changer. I always feel like there are options. Less like a victim of circumstance. The stamina/sway then becomes a very enjoyable part of the game, because I'm actively searching to counter it.

Also, a well thought out FOV explanation. I'm feeling the "zoom" might be moved off the default control scheme at some point?

Edited June 30, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[BleedoutBill 1636]

Thanks for the renderer update.

 

The hold breath example videos ... they are being displayed as *.jpg images for me?!?!?!

 

I appreciate the FOV explanation. I typically like to be around 90 degrees. The last I saw the new UI, there were no degree markings on the slider. I hope that this has been addressed. I agree that the aim FOV should be the same for everyone, regardless of our individual preferred FOV. Thanks for making the extra effort on this. 

[Coheed_IV 381]

Now if we could just get as many people discussing this here as is on reddit. -_-

yeah, I've always felt that way. I just don't get it. But, I definitely feel like I missout on some info, since I hate visiting there.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks, guys!

 

Dare I say... fuck reddit!

 

Sticking to the official forum should mean something.

 

Rocket was getting sucked into flame wars on reddit when he could have engaged us here and drawn attention to the official site....

 

Either way, thanks for the news!

 

Psyched for 0.58!

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Thanks for the renderer update.

 

The hold breath example videos ... they are being displayed as *.jpg images for me?!?!?!

 

I appreciate the FOV explanation. I typically like to be around 90 degrees. The last I saw the new UI, there were no degree markings on the slider. I hope that this has been addressed. I agree that the aim FOV should be the same for everyone, regardless of our individual preferred FOV. Thanks for making the extra effort on this. 

OK now I know where the videos are. Head over to http://dayz.com/blog/status-report-30-jun-2015I though we were waiting for them or something because I also did see only images. I'll post some later. Also fuck reddit.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

First

Go back to youtube you nub!

[St. Jimmy 1631]

About the videos. Yeah holding breath is the simple way to do things. If you want to go that way fine. But I'll say that holding breath doesn't actually fatigue you. Actually keeping your weapon up and steady is the hardest part and it fatigues your arms mostly and the overall fatigue can also have some effect in the end.

 

Here's an example mod in Arma 3 about arm fatigue

 

Weapon sway is always so you try to eliminate as much horizontal sway as possible. Then you fight with the vertical sway that comes mostly from breathing in the most optimal situations. Remember that. Most of the time the feedback in Arma 3 weapon sway thread was that the sway needs to be more vertical and I agreed with those.

 

This is a bit more in-depth what I'm talking here.

 

These things affects your accuracy mostly with guns:

- Stance and how well your body/weapon is rested on something

- Breathing (comes from fatigue)

- Arm fatigue (don't confuse this with the plain fatigue!)

 

With a good stance and weapon resting you can mostly eliminate the other factors

Fatigue affects how hard you breath

Breathing affects how much your gun sways vertically (mostly) when you've rested your weapon or have a good stance

Arm fatigue build up how much you keep your weapon up. It affects how long you can keep your gun steady until it starts to wander around more in your sight and more quickly. It starts to build more vertical movement.

 

So

 

Stance and weapon resting affect the amount horizontal and vertical sway

Breathing affects vertical sway. How fast it's, how much and with breath holding you can steady that nicely for some time depending how fatigued you're

Arm fatigue affects mostly horizontal sway and some vertical. The gun starts to wander around more the more fatigued the arms are. It also makes your gun shake a bit in the extreme.

 

 

Prone:

Doesn't build arm fatigue and very little if at all horizontal sway especially if the weapon is deployed or you've a good resting position.

So pretty much only component is the breathing that comes from fatigue so the sway is just vertical.

 

Crouched:

With good training or rest this is very stable stance also. But when the gun isn't resting at your knee through you elbow (sorry can't say it better) or some object then this stance is actually not too pleasant and sway all around happens. So rested this is again mostly vertical because of breathing and bit horizontal could be added because of the stance negative factor.

When the gun isn't rested there's basic horizontal and vertical sway that build up how much your arm fatigue is. Breathing makes more vertical sway and you can again control it depending how fatigued you're.

 

Stand up:

Way harder than crouched but still pretty easy to hit something at 50m when not rested. This is mostly "run and gun" or "quick stop & shoot and move again" stance. You likely get the idea from the previous stance.

 

In the end I'm just saying that you can hold your breath depending on how fatigued you're and breath holding eliminates mostly vertical sway. That's what breath holding does.

Edited June 30, 2015 by St. Jimmy

[-Gews- 7443]

 

If those two pictures are both representing the default RMB zoom then that deals with my largest complaint of 0.57 which was "player/irons minFov much too high / player vision too low".  :thumbsup:

[PaniXx 34]

great status report again. These have been improved by factor 100000. Anyway, i would like to question one thing, which was asked on reddit, but was not seen:

 

Are you going to release a second quarterly status report (next week)? I don't want to sound spoiled, but from the logical aspect a second, third and fourth quarterly report will be expected to be published. 

Edited June 30, 2015 by PaniXx

[LoveAffair 329]

Week Four and still not a drop or a care about Tent persistence...

[pacoofficial 8]

aiming when the character is tired easier to do (casual)

[RaptorM60 392]

Now if we could just get as many people discussing this here as is on reddit. -_-

I have yet to experience a true discussion on Reddit, been only getting random one-liners or machistic movie quotes/memes as an answer to pretty much anything so far :D

Also:

"Who's getting killed?"

"Most likely me."

Priceless! :D Kid does not even know how hard he made me laugh.

Edited July 1, 2015 by RaptorM60

[Coheed_IV 381]

Dev Update/Jan

 

We should probably start by asking the question "Why have a characters-eye zoom in the first place?". It's the old problem with emulating a 3D world on insufficient hardware. The human field of vision (fov) is around 190° and the area where the vision cones of both eyes overlap is around 100°.  Unfortunately, most of todays monitors viewed from a regular distance usually tend to cover only 45°of human fov in real life. This means that if you want for target on screen to appear in real-life size you are only able to display around ~1/2 of what you would see in reality, stereoscopically. 

 

And so as a designer you have to choose - Should I display objects in the distance properly but sacrifice the overall vision or set the fov to 100° but deform the whole picture? The trick of Arma is actually not to choose and instead introduce an "eye zoom" instead. This way you can keep the surrounding awareness by setting the default fov to 100°, but when necessary to perceive a depth of field properly occurs (ie. you are shooting), you can "zoom in" to 45°. 

Most people new to DayZ/RV fail to understand this concept. Mainstream games don't go to this length, they just pick one, while sacrificing the other.

 

So people come to this game/engine and think it's strange, then claim it's unrealistic. They join the realism police :murder: and say my eyes don't zoom, why would they in game.

 

Why not explain this in game?

I've been playing games for a long time and have come to find out learning about games is as fun as playing them. Helping players understand some aspects (like this) only increase the enjoyment of the final product. RV and Enfusion have roots in simulation, most mainstream gamers will come to it with some confusion (weapon ranges, bore line, ballistics, star maps, etc.). Please, teaching them something like this only helps them understand why many of the games they are used to are fraudulent :P . At the least some drop down explanations in menu. Don't undervalue the willingness to learn this game.

 

One more thought after posting on sway/stamina. My feeling is that the level of severity is tied to your options to counter it. Lessening the feeling of being a victim to sway. I brought up the weapon stabilization or weapon resting of Arma3. This is something that the player can actively seek out to improve the situation.

 

I'm not sure, but Altis was probably designed with weapon resting in mind. I'm not sure how many positions Chernarus+ would even have. But, whether by weapon resting or other means, there should be some player choice to lessen the sway.

 

These other means are better in real time. Soft skills (unknown) are typically like a switch, nice but your not actively engaging the problem in the moment to counter your sway. Dropping your backpack at your feet would be an example. Planning ahead for total weight is great, but it's not in the moment. You are still a victim of sway.

 

Greater differentiation of stances to severity gets the player actively countering sway. Having more stances gives more choices. There is currently two choices for firing, and one you cant see most of the time.

 

So while planning to keep your sway in check (weight, pace, skill?) is great, you still are a victim while swaying. Giving real time options (weapon resting, dropping weight, specific stances) keeps the player engaged in solving the situation, even if the options aren't always available or over powered.

 

So for me its not about how much sway, its more about my options to deal with it.  

Edited July 1, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[Bororm 1156]

Thank you devs for an explanation on the FOV/zoom mechanic changes and the reasoning behind them in the first place.  Looks like it is improving from what it is currently, so that's great.

 

 

In regards to hold breath, one thing to keep in mind is that there is a point where having too much sway just encourages players to sprint really close and spray each other instead.  The idea of course is to encourage players to slow down, but the opposite effect can easily happen.  In my own experience, that's the case of the SA overall and how fights often break down unless some one is sniping.  It's due to a variety of factors besides sway/hold breath but that is still a part of it.  I don't really have much to contribute on how to avoid that, without other things being finalized first (sprint speed/zoom probably being some of the most important).

[tux (DayZ) 325]

Thanks for the in-depth report on the new renderer.

 

    * more worlds can be renderered in one frame, it allows to create independent scenes 

        * needed for workbench
        * usable also in game to create e.g. mirrors, cameras...

 

This is really cool. I'm so glad that working mirrors (especially rear view mirrors in vehicles for 1PP mode) and cameras are features that you are planning on adding.

 

Are you talking about an actual workbench to build items on? Or is this some sort of software that has to do with the enfusion engine.

 

Can you elaborate on this any more? (or maybe Hicks_206?)

 

Now if we could just get as many people discussing this here as is on reddit. -_-

 

Thanks for doing Q&A on reddit. Problem is, I hardly ever check the /r/dayz subreddit because it is horrible. I'll make a point to check it regularly for you to post, as your and other devs direct replies are very very very interesting and helpful to read.

 

Maybe figure out how to update the "dev tracker" section of the forums to link to reddit every time one of you guys do a Q&A. Twitter Q&As too (as sometimes I miss these).

 

What video?

 

Go to the official status report here. This mirror on the forums doesn't have the videos, just thumbnails of them.

Edited July 1, 2015 by tux

[boneboys 7988]

What video?

I've added the videos.

[DemonGroover 8836]

How does the sway work when looking down sights? How random are the movement directions?