Status Report - 12 Nov 2015

[SMoss 2101]

 

Afternoon Survivors,

In this week's Status Report, we'll have info on subjects such as the renderer, the UI, damage, and animation systems, all served by our Lead Producer Brian Hicks, Lead Designer Peter Nespesny, and Lead Animator Viktor Kostik.

 

Contents This Week

• Development Board Spotlight
• Dev Update/Hicks
• Dev Update/Peter
• Dev Update/Viktor
• Community Video: Max Coil and the Gents of Novo

 

Development Board Spotlight

 

Dev Update/Hicks

Greetings Survivors!

 

If you don't happen to follow twitter or the forums you may not be aware of the current focus on iterating upon 0.59 experimental. Obviously the team is working hard to resolve the issues with server side performance, as well as pushing several new potential changes to vehicle position sync to QA.

 

So the big question everyone wants to know - when will 0.59 move to stable?

 

- Once we are satisfied with server side performance at maximum player count vs 12 hour uptime

- Vehicle Position Sync is at a marked improvement over 0.58

- High repro (reproducible) server and client crashes are resolved

 

Past 0.59 - internally we are -hoping- to be able to get another update out prior to Christmas (to experimental at the very least). However, that will depend on the stability of the build post 0.59 stable and the merges done right after that. As mentioned during the PAX Australia "The Road to Beta" presentation - we'll keep everyone updated on this progress via the official Twitter account, and the Status Reports between then and now.

 

-KEEP IN MIND: THE UPDATE OF 0.59 TO STABLE WILL INCLUDE A FULL HIVE AND SERVER STORAGE RESET. THIS INCLUDES PRIVATE SHARDS OF THE HIVE-

 

Moving past discussion around 0.59 experimental, lets move on to discussing what the current status of some of the major engine side updates are.

 

Renderer

 

Completed within October

 

- Multiple Cascade Shadow Maps

- Updated Rain Postprocess

- Updated HDR & Glow

 

Current Focus

 

- Finalizing postprocesses

- Multithread Optimizations

 

Next Up

 

- Small bodies of water, and Ocean rendering

- True Sky rendering

 

We have some screenshots from debug that we can discuss in a little more detail as well. (Please take care to understand these are from debug machines - and are thus running lower resolutions/over all configurations and are meant to display technical tests)

 

 

In the above screenshot we can see improved cooperation between the HDR and Glow Effects.

 

Within the above screenshots we can see fog improved with proper height base. 

In this screenshot in the distance we can see Aerial Perspective Fog, with the additional effect of light scattering o

Here we see an early iteration of improved dynamic range hopefully allowing us differing light levels between interiors and exteriors.

The above screenshots show the current iteration of updates done to rain - which should allow a more rich, and believable downpour situation. Paired potentially with fog, this will greatly impact visibility during adverse weather conditions.

 

Animation System / Player Controller

 

The animation system and new player controller both are major elements of DayZ's engine that are in progress. The new actions done in Enforce Script can not enter experimental testing until the animation system fully supports all the necessary functions from the legacy animation system. I know I've gone on, and on about the total rewrite of actions in game being a massive change to how DayZ plays - and I hate to sound like a broken record. HOWEVER - I personally cannot state this enough. The change from the clunky old fashioned method used by DayZ, DayZ Mod, Arma 3, Arma 2, and so on to a new and more dynamic system will change a hell of a lot more than how you eat a bag of rice, or pick apples. I genuinely believe this will be one of the most massive changes to DayZ gameplay and completely redefine how the title is experienced.

 

That said - while we're all desperate to see this in the hands of consumers before the holiday break - A more reliable estimate (playing it safe and assuming we'll encounter critical bugs and blockers once this is merged into the main testing branch) would be to expect it early in the beginning of the new year.

 

Damage System

 

Currently in the hands of the gameplay programmers - once this is completed on their end, it will need to be fully configured on the side of the design team. That said - with this we're looking at a hopeful target of mid to late January before we see it move over to player testable branches.

 

Between the new damage system, and new player controller (and of course - complete rewrite of player actions within Enforce Script) we're hoping to squash some of our major gameplay / exploit level issues. (Duping, Spamming action abuse, glitching into structures, changing ammo type to explosions, and so on)

Keep in mind that these will more than likely cause their own issues - which will be addressed as they come up, and into the beta phase of DayZ development.

 

Lastly for this Status Report - a little sneak peek at some design and art level pieces - We have (some) of the required parts for helicopters.

 

 

Control Unit

 

 

Electrical Wires

 

 

Hydraulic Hoses

 

 

Pitch Link

 

 

Rear Rotor Blade

 

Not pictured:

 

- Igniter Plug

- Battery

- Aviation Fuel

- Motor Oil

- Hydraulic Fluid

- Transmission Oil

 

Questions? Suggestions? Make sure to head over to the official DayZ Forums and join the Status Report discussion thread for this week.

 

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

 

Dev Update/Peter

Our new user interface should be part of our beta release with the aim to improve the current user experience. We have added several more features to the UI system recently, which allow us to streamline the process leading to the new user interface and help future modders as well.  As well there are some changes for the players which will make life easier - like automatic aspect ratio taken from the current resolution or dynamically repositioning and scaling of interface elements. Also a significant raise of client FPS with new UI system is a thing which shouldn't be omitted.

 

Inventory is one of the most important screens, not only because players spent most of their interface time right here, but mainly for managing everyone's little treasures. This screen should be slick, easy to read and navigate as well as its functional design that shouldn't interfere with the intentions of game design. You have seen the concept art/mockup of the new inventory screen already and we are currently refining it's proportions, layout and functionalities to make it best as possible. 

 

From the game mechanics point of view the new inventory is still missing a few things. While a solid foundation of the rewritten inventory system is already in game, now is the time to build upon it and add features which enrich possibilities and gameplay. First, I want to mention a small but unimportant one, which opens doors for others and make them more useful and interesting. A higher granularity of slots, leading to much better scalability of item sizes and cargo sizes. No more precious space used by matchbox, battery, pen and other small items. Combination of smaller and thinner items with bigger ones can lead to a unused gaps in inventory space and that's the moment when ability of rotating items kicks in and save the day. Hand in hand with rotation and more smaller slots per row cargo sizes can be changed to horizontal orientation to show more rows of inventory which leads to less vertical scrolling while managing it. Now you are probably excited as you started to imagine how many stuff you'll be able to cram in your backpack (especially guns). For that reason I would like to see dynamic change of item size where factors like numbers of attachments and their sizes define current item size in inventory. In other words you can carry stripped down AK and all it's attachments in backpack with tradeoff of it's readiness for combat. As I can tell your excitement is at the maximum level possible I feel it's a good time to water it down a bit. Damage state of cargo will be projected into ripped unusable slots, which adds the meaning for maintenance and taking care of your backpack and clothes apart from damaged visuals. Also linking slots into groups within one cargo space to create virtual pockets adds a cheery on top of inventory management and underline the hardcore nature of DayZ.

 

It must be said that our design requirements for new inventory system brought also other features to the game that affect gameplay directly. One of the most annoying limitations of the former inventory system was definitely the hand slot, which acted like mirror of cargo space equipped on character. While you had some inventory it somehow worked, apart from very annoying behavior and tendencies to break and messing with user actions in general. However while you hadn't any inventory slots which could be mirrored as hand slot to fool player things went down hill. Thus there become to live virtual cargo space with different rules as 'normal' cargo spaces as a resolution of this problem. You know the outcome of it, inconsistencies, prone to duping, strange and sometimes unexpected behavior. I'm glad that hands slot is equal to others. I find some of you being a bit restless with such change, but I clearly see from where it comes from. While I admit it was very convenient with old mirrored hands to not care about hand slot in regards of inventory capacity at all it leads to side effects like lowering inventory space by the size of item in hands. Requirement for awareness of how much inventory space you have left and what you are carrying openly in hands provides space for fast decisions making which ensures interesting situations. Of course dropping something from hands needs to be clearly visualized as animation so you don't realize too late that you left needed item somewhere beyond. (This is a big one one)

 

Another game changer is ability to simulate items placed in the inventory which wasn't possible before as items were asleep in such state. Now a flashlight is draining battery if you don't turn it off, smoke grenade is releasing it's smoke after activation and frag grenade happily counting down when it was unpinned before. We were also able to modify quickbar behavior as well. Now having better clothes with more inventory space equipped gives you more quickslots to use. This feature in combination with chambering and reloading from quickslots will raise demand for high tier clothes as they will have other practical utilization apart from more inventory space.

 

Second very important screen is HUD overlay, which as you noticed with latest 0.59 experimental we started to implement. However this is completely different story to tell but I can assure you it will be possible to toggle on demand so it will not occlude your view if you looking for maximum immersion as possible. (We’ll talk about this in upcoming Status Reports)

 

Stay organized... see you in Chernarus folks!

 

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

 

 

 

 

Dev Update/Viktor

The animation team continues working on the player character on the new animations system and has just recently started to work on the injured animations.

 

 

The wounded character will have more types of animations. We would like to have visualized an injury like for instance a broken arm or leg. With this type of injury a limited movement set and user actions set will be provided.

 

In the past we have already started on the implementation that we had to stop because of the limitations of the engine as we were not able to deliver the experience we were aiming for. As the new animations system is closer and is already offering us with some fancy options it is the right time continue on this type of feature. Except the limited usage of different items a limited movement set will be available depending on the injury. We would like to achieve this by using additive animations, blending of multiple animations, using animation sets to easily switch the complete sets of animations inside the animation graph and other sophisticated and cool features of the new animations system.

 

This is a very important part of the gameplay so we will need a lot of iterating and testing to find out a proper setup so it is challenging and not frustrating at the same time.

 

 

- Viktor Kostik/ Lead Animator

 

 

 

Community Video: Max Coil and the Gents of Novo

Hey all,

 

So, for this week I chose to go with something a little bit different. Uploaded by Pitstop Head, this week's video shows what some players are up to when finding different ways of entertaining themselves outside of regular pvp or pve.

 

 

I tried muting the audio at the beginning of the video, but then it turned out that for a while, I had a bit of a hard time understanding what the hell was going on. Turning up the volume again helped. Slightly. In any which way, pretty ingenious with the box car everyone!

 

If you have the time, please do have a look at Pitstop Head's Twitch and Youtube accounts since there are good amounts of DayZ action/footage available through there.

 

As always, if you have a nice video containing DayZ footage you'd like to share, or if you have come across some DayZ footage from other content creators, just post it in the Gallery section of the DayZ forums and we'll happily have a look.

 

Header image credit: Schakal1260

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

[Noctoras 409]

my turn: first

:P

[Coheed_IV 381]

and I hate to sound like a broken record. HOWEVER - I personally cannot state this enough. The change from the clunky old fashioned method used by DayZ, DayZ Mod, Arma 3, Arma 2,

That broken record sounds great.

Also, I'm wondering how fog will work across the map. Will there be fog in Stary Sobor without it completely drowning the coast in fog, because of lower elevation?

Edited November 13, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[Merc. 37]

Ok, I'm usually all good with multiple parts to put something together. I get it but look at this list:

 

Control Unit

Electrical Wires

Hydraulic Hoses 

Pitch Links

Rear Rotor Blade

Igniter Plug

Battery

Aviation Fuel

Motor Oil

Hydraulic Fluid

Transmission Oil

 

I really can't back that up. I understand this game should be brutally hard. However, gameplay-wise, Why would someone go through all the trouble of gathering ALL these items and making sure they work, when this think can get stolen, blown up by a grenade launcher, or shot down with heavy machine guns. On top of that, the group of players (because no way one person is doing this, which is perfectly fine with me) is going to have a mental breakdown when they finally get this put together and it crashes shortly after take off because due to piloting error. 

 

My feedback, at this point, would be to reconsider so many parts for something not very protected, or at least consider heave "health" stats for these "shoot me" aviation vehicles.

 

Thoughts?

[r8gato 46]

This is where I believe server options such as 'Hardcore' 'Regular' 'Easy Arcade' Modes come in to play. Depending on the server YOU choose, gives you a different type of game play experience. Not just 'Hardcore = 1PP' and 'Regular = 3PP'

 

Hardcore should be HARDCORE.

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

Too much awesome news for one update. There. Someone had to complain. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

I genuinely believe this will be one of the most massive changes to DayZ gameplay and completely redefine how the title is experienced.

 

 

So much awesome stuff!!!

 

Thank you, guys and gals of DayZ dev!

 

My body is ready.

 

[HaseDesTodes 315]

Ok, I'm usually all good with multiple parts to put something together. I get it but look at this list:

 

Control Unit

Electrical Wires

Hydraulic Hoses 

Pitch Links

Rear Rotor Blade

Igniter Plug

Battery

Aviation Fuel

Motor Oil

Hydraulic Fluid

Transmission Oil

 

I really can't back that up. I understand this game should be brutally hard. However, gameplay-wise, Why would someone go through all the trouble of gathering ALL these items and making sure they work, when this think can get stolen, blown up by a grenade launcher, or shot down with heavy machine guns. On top of that, the group of players (because no way one person is doing this, which is perfectly fine with me) is going to have a mental breakdown when they finally get this put together and it crashes shortly after take off because due to piloting error. 

 

My feedback, at this point, would be to reconsider so many parts for something not very protected, or at least consider heave "health" stats for these "shoot me" aviation vehicles.

 

Thoughts?

helis are the nonplus ultra of the vehicles, so they should be hard to maintain. and apart from the ammount of different parts, the quantity is up for balancing.

and if you use it right you shouldn't get shot down so easily.

as for the piloting errors, well thats one thing that might happen very often, especially if the fight physics/controlls are as hardcore as TOH. but i don't think that one hardcore advanced filight model will come as mandatory, maybe as an option.

for example tha arma3 advanced flight model (or the flight model from TOH) is very hard to use without a joystick, and even though i think flying with a joystick is much better, not everyone can be expected to have one.

[SMoss 2101]

Ok, I'm usually all good with multiple parts to put something together. I get it but look at this list:

 

Control Unit

Electrical Wires

Hydraulic Hoses 

Pitch Links

Rear Rotor Blade

Igniter Plug

Battery

Aviation Fuel

Motor Oil

Hydraulic Fluid

Transmission Oil

 

I really can't back that up. I understand this game should be brutally hard. However, gameplay-wise, Why would someone go through all the trouble of gathering ALL these items and making sure they work, when this think can get stolen, blown up by a grenade launcher, or shot down with heavy machine guns. On top of that, the group of players (because no way one person is doing this, which is perfectly fine with me) is going to have a mental breakdown when they finally get this put together and it crashes shortly after take off because due to piloting error. 

 

My feedback, at this point, would be to reconsider so many parts for something not very protected, or at least consider heave "health" stats for these "shoot me" aviation vehicles.

 

Thoughts?

Let's see what things turn out to be once the helicopter arrives in future builds. If it turns out that it is way to difficult both obtaining parts and maintaining the machinery, I could imagine that the designers might take things up for revision and find a solution for sorting out the difficulty of that part of gameplay. To begin with though, I don't think that "getting hold of" an operational helicopter would be an easy feat.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Any chance for a thought or 2 on the questions below?

 

Is there a model for infected Rocket yet?

 

Can you confirm plans for the M-79 grenade launcher (takes same rounds as M4 launcher I believe)?

 

ETA on Molotov cocktails? (After renderer?)

 

Thoughts about the return of empty cans? (so many uses!)

 

What will our options be for cannabis consumption in the game? (papers, pipes, bongs, infused cooking oils/fats for edibles)

[AnarchyBrownies 1383]

Good status report, thanks guys!

 

Lots to be excited about :)

[Merc. 37]

Let's see what things turn out to be once the helicopter arrives in future builds. If it turns out that it is way to difficult both obtaining parts and maintaining the machinery, I could imagine that the designers might take things up for revision and find a solution for sorting out the difficulty of that part of gameplay. To begin with though, I don't think that "getting hold of" an operational helicopter would be an easy feat.

 

 

Indeed. Haven't even touched it yet so of course this is all conjectures in nature. I'm guessing "getting hold of" won't be the issue that leads to a revision, but the repercussions of having built one and everyone seeing it in the sky. 

[VahidkinG 192]

Great Status report. That Rain and fog is totally amazing and upcoming changes to engine makes me wish i am Hiro nakamura.

 

Let's see what things turn out to be once the helicopter arrives in future builds. If it turns out that it is way to difficult both obtaining parts and maintaining the machinery, I could imagine that the designers might take things up for revision and find a solution for sorting out the difficulty of that part of gameplay. To begin with though, I don't think that "getting hold of" an operational helicopter would be an easy feat.

 

Not that i'm not a fan of the game being as hard as possible, don't get me wrong but a helicopter missing every part (we need to find all those parts right?) is not either fun nor real. 

the idea is, make this with Dynamic Events, so you can find a helicopter with all parts or a helicopter with-out any parts. this would be totally awesome. think you have the battery for a car and you need a glow plug. you can start searching for glow plug with a chance of finding a car with a glow plug in it. 

 

thoughts ?  B)

[AnarchyBrownies 1383]

Indeed. Haven't even touched it yet so of course this is all conjectures in nature. I'm guessing "getting hold of" won't be the issue that leads to a revision, but the repercussions of having built one and everyone seeing it in the sky. 

 

Well you have to consider the fact that people on the ground may also want that helicopter and destroying it won't do them any good. They could instead prefer to try and steal it if the opportunity arises. If they see a helicopter flying around the area maybe they'll just wait and see if it lands and take action from there.

 

Also, because of the amount of parts it just means it's difficult for one person to get one functioning. In a group, however, it may be much easier and perhaps not even overly difficult if you have a group that's experienced at doing it.

[ImageCtrl 719]

This helicopter is worth a lot. Love it.

 

Great report.

[Sperglord 76]

Ok, I'm usually all good with multiple parts to put something together. I get it but look at this list:

 

Control Unit

Electrical Wires

Hydraulic Hoses 

Pitch Links

Rear Rotor Blade

Igniter Plug

Battery

Aviation Fuel

Motor Oil

Hydraulic Fluid

Transmission Oil

 

I really can't back that up. I understand this game should be brutally hard. However, gameplay-wise, Why would someone go through all the trouble of gathering ALL these items and making sure they work, when this think can get stolen, blown up by a grenade launcher, or shot down with heavy machine guns. On top of that, the group of players (because no way one person is doing this, which is perfectly fine with me) is going to have a mental breakdown when they finally get this put together and it crashes shortly after take off because due to piloting error. 

 

My feedback, at this point, would be to reconsider so many parts for something not very protected, or at least consider heave "health" stats for these "shoot me" aviation vehicles.

 

Thoughts?

 

I had an idea a while ago that there would be an isolated end game military island far away with the best gear in the game but also with very high number of zombies but only spawning when the player enters the island like in the mod so they dont use the server resources all the time and that island would be accessible with a helicopter or 3 hours of swimming if you prefer that

 

Thats more of a fantasy, but also I think all those helicopter parts will do good for the trade system between players on the forum, it will be easier and faster to trade a helicopter part for a car part for example

 

 

Thus i think there should be a pretty big number of helicopters spawning on the map (and by big i mean around 10-15 per server) but you need a lot of parts in order to get to make it work

 

Then when you loot and trade with people for helicopter parts and then you have a supply of them so you can store them all in your camp and if one of your helis gets stolen or shot down you just find another one and use the supply of parts that you have in your camp.

 

At least thats what i would do since I like to collect everything in games even useless trash

Edited November 13, 2015 by Sperglord

[jayfkay (DayZ) 185]

Rain looking great! Hope there will be several levels of rain in the end.

Edited November 13, 2015 by jayfkay

[BleedoutBill 1636]

OMG!

 

Once the renderer is in place, Tatanko will be so busy taking pics, that he won't get any sleep at all!!!

[AnarchyBrownies 1383]

OMG!

 

Once the renderer is in place, Tatanko will be so busy taking pics, that he won't get any sleep at all!!!

 

True :(.

 

Devs, perhaps consider not implementing the new renderer? For the health of certain Dayz players.

[BCBasher 2465]

helis are the nonplus ultra of the vehicles, so they should be hard to maintain. and apart from the ammount of different parts, the quantity is up for balancing.

and if you use it right you shouldn't get shot down so easily.

as for the piloting errors, well thats one thing that might happen very often, especially if the fight physics/controlls are as hardcore as TOH. but i don't think that one hardcore advanced filight model will come as mandatory, maybe as an option.

for example tha arma3 advanced flight model (or the flight model from TOH) is very hard to use without a joystick, and even though i think flying with a joystick is much better, not everyone can be expected to have one.

 

I think the vanilla game should have a hard(er) flight model personally and save the dumbed down version for the mods. Not everyone is expected to have a joystick but those people just shouldn't expect to fly easily, well or at all. Anyone who already has a joystick already probably has some hours flying sims and represents the people with previous experience that would have the possibility of acquiring and being able to utilize an abandoned aircraft in the context of the game.

 

Older Sidewinder or Wingman joysticks can be found cheap anywhere like ebay, thriftsotres, garage sales I've never paid more than $25 for one using a $5 Wingman currently so really it's not a big investment to be expected of people who want to fly either.  

[blacktwin0 98]

The quickslots and clothes thing Peter mentioned, will items in backpacks not be able to be on the quickslot bar? Only items in shirts, pants, chest, boot slots and their virtual slots? I hope so! :) I would think that primary and melee shoulder items would still be quickslot-able.

Can't wait for all the changes.

As for the helicopter difficulty (sorry for not quoting, mobile) someone else took my thought that other players wouldn't shoot down or destroy the heli if they wanted to use it. Although there are some people who would. It would be better to track it and steal it. I did like the idea of having the heli spawn with random amounts of parts already included. Likewise with vehicles. Hopefully the single player version will allow us to practice our flying skills.

[BleedoutBill 1636]

I quite like the concept that damaged clothing will reduce the number of available storage slots and qucik bar slots. It provides motivation to keep one's gear maintained. Also, having items such as pens take up less than a full slot, is also a great development.

[Coheed_IV 381]

Yeah, the news on inventory is outstanding. I'm usually annoyed by game quick slots, this is a very thoughtful and interesting development!

Liked hearing Peters thoughts on the hands slot, I need more though. When standing armed with weapon and putting item in storage, without using hands, this is black magic! How is this going to work?

Edited November 13, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[dedoolb 157]

"As I can tell your excitement is at the maximum level possible I feel it's a good time to water it down a bit."

 

DID NOT WORK, SIR

 

[TimF 79]

Ok, I'm usually all good with multiple parts to put something together. I get it but look at this list:

 

Control Unit

Electrical Wires

Hydraulic Hoses 

Pitch Links

Rear Rotor Blade

Igniter Plug

Battery

Aviation Fuel

Motor Oil

Hydraulic Fluid

Transmission Oil

 

I really can't back that up. I understand this game should be brutally hard. However, gameplay-wise, Why would someone go through all the trouble of gathering ALL these items and making sure they work, when this think can get stolen, blown up by a grenade launcher, or shot down with heavy machine guns. On top of that, the group of players (because no way one person is doing this, which is perfectly fine with me) is going to have a mental breakdown when they finally get this put together and it crashes shortly after take off because due to piloting error. 

 

My feedback, at this point, would be to reconsider so many parts for something not very protected, or at least consider heave "health" stats for these "shoot me" aviation vehicles.

 

Thoughts?

I hope the answer to this is - vehicles spawn with a random amount of parts missing, so you don't have to find everything on that list to get it going. Maybe you get lucky and just need new hoses and fluids or maybe you get unlucky and need a new control unit, battery and cabling and a rotor but you don't have to find a dozen things every time you want to get a chopper going.