Status Report - 10 Dec 2015

[SMoss 2101]

Afternoon Survivors,

 

In this week's Status Report, our Lead Producer Brian will inform us of the current state of development as well as give us a peek at a couple of the incoming vehicles/transportation devices. Also, our Lead Designer Peter will let us in on future plans for hunting and horticulture which looks exciting to those of us who enjoy the hermit lifestyle.

 

Contents This Week

• Development Board Spotlight
• Dev Update/Hicks
• Dev Update/Peter
• Community Spotlight: Isaaq

 

Development Board Spotlight

 

 

Dev Update/Hicks

Happy Holidays everyone!

 

This Status Report will be the last one for this year, as for the last two weeks of this month the team slowly starts heading home to spend the holidays with their families.

 

That said, we have some cool stuff to talk about and show this week, as well as updates on the major engine work everyone is curious about - and even a few new screenshots.

 

ONCE AGAIN - BE AWARE THAT 0.59 STABLE UPDATE BRINGS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL WIPE OF CHARACTERS, ITEMS, AND SERVER DATA!

 

Later today we will bring the Stable Branch servers offline for the 0.59 update. Changelog should follow shortly after the update - and notifications on the service will come from the official DayZ Dev Team twitter account. (twitter.com/dayzdevteam)

 

Please keep in mind - this is but one build on the path of development. It will have its own issues, absent features, bugs, and so on - the best thing you can do to help bring DayZ towards the game we all can't wait to see it become is to file those bugs over at feedback.dayzgame.com !

 

This report, I'd like to give you all an update on where the new animation system, as well as the new renderer are - and what the next goals in their development are.

 

Animation System:

 

Currently Completed:

- Animation Engine Base
- Animation Engine Editor

 

Current Focus:

- Infected, Player, and Animal skeleton support/graph production
- Finishing synchronizations
- Finishing differential animations
- Ramp up for animators on new technology

 

Next Up:

- Add nodes to support more extensive functionality
- Synthetic Rotations
- Removing legacy animation system tech once deprecated

 

Renderer:

 

Currently Completed:

- DX 11 Water Surface Rendering
- DX 11 Ambient Occlusion

 

Current Focus:

- Optimization / Parrellization
- Clouds Rendering

 

 

 

While at PAX Australia I spoke briefly on how I'd like to be able to bring the Little Bird to stable branch before Christmas - and how if anything prevented that I'd make sure to let you all know. That said - the programming teams now have the first of our aircraft operating on the proper physics system, however multiplayer sync is not quite ready for the Steam branches. While we won't be seeing in time for Christmas - I'm confident we're not too far off now. :)

Keep an eye on the DayZ Trello board to track the progress of this task!

 

 

That said! The art team has finished on the upcoming Jana Dirtbike - which you can see in the below screenshots:

 

 

Now that the Jana is complete, work has just begun on everyone’s favorite DayZ method of transportation - THE BICYCLE

 

 

Lastly this week - I'd like to give you all a sneak peek at some of the awesome stuff some of the team in Bratislava have been working on. It’s no secret that we've wanted to bring dangerous predatory animal threats to the woods and fields of Chernarus - and we're getting close to being able to do just that!

 

 

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

 

Dev Update/Peter

Along with scavenging for non-perishable food and cultivation of your own crops, the wildlife of Chernarus offers yet another way how to gather food important for survival. As most of you know or guessed gathering food thru horticulture and hunting will be promoted in the future over non-perishable food as that should be quite rare to find.

 

Animals in DayZ have their day cycle and you can learn by observation what their territories are and where are the points of their interests, may it be water reservoirs, grazing or resting areas. Hunting shouldn't be trivial as animals are very sensitive to your presence and will flee if they notice something unusual going on. However what will the hunting be without the possibility to track your prey down? Tracking is a must have to deepen the hunting experience and make it more enjoyable. Not to mention it as a necessity for following fleeing animals by different signs and marks they leave. Hooves or paws prints, blood stains and scraped ground, even stomped grass patches will help you with localization if you follow them carefully.
The same system will be used for tracking of survivors by their foot prints or blood stains and also vehicles, which can leave tracks or stains from leaking operation fluids and don't forget destroyed small items as mileages, sign posts and others as shown in the last Status Report. I'm happy to see how such small details generated by dynamic entities will add to the overall authenticity of static world.

 

Keep your eyes open... see you in Chernarus folks!

 

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

 

 

 

Community Spotlight: Isaaq

Hey all,

 

So for this time around I came across a couple of videos created by Isaaq. Isaaq seems to be primarily doing RP which always makes for an interesting watch. In particular I enjoyed the video "A Strange Land" which shows the struggles of "a man who just woke up on the coast":

 

 

If you go to Isaaq's Youtube channel, you'll find a couple more videos which are quite good. Hopefully we'll see more DayZ videos in the future as well. Also, you'll be able to follow Isaaq via his Twitch and Twitter channels where you can catch his streams and news on new videos.

 

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: green.bratishka

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

[Konfucious K 183]

Wohoo!! 0.59 Stable hype!!

[blacktwin0 98]

Bikes, wolves, and tracking!!!! Can't wait for these to be added. Wolves video looked great. Will there be calls or lures for animals? Elk calls? 

[Konfucious K 183]

I'm loving it! Finally some two-wheeled mania! The Jana reminds me of my brothers Java...

[Tzetze 3]

What's that jacket the hunter is wearing in the video.. DPM M65?   Want!

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

WolveZ!

 

So much awesome!

 

I wish we would have heard about infected progress but I really liked all that was shared.

 

Thanks for hard work, devs!

 

Looking forward to .60!

[igor-vk 909]

Zombies in urban areas and wolves (and I hope bears) in woods, we will never have peace again

[Tatanko 5591]

Really excited about everything that was covered, but especially predator animals. I've been waiting a looooong time for those.

 

Also pretty excited to take screenshots with the new renderer elements when they hit  B)

 

What's that jacket the hunter is wearing in the video.. DPM M65?   Want!

Looks like a TTsKO jacket to me.

[Coheed_IV 381]

Wow, awesome video! Best sneak peak yet!

 

It looks like the bike will have a working light?

[Rammit (DayZ) 153]

update just queued in steam. downloading now... 1.7GB

[Tatanko 5591]

It looks like the bike will have a working light?

That means we'll need a 9V battery to get our bikes operational! JK :P

 

I'm curious to see how they'll handle the "inventory" for the bike. Rather than an open space like the existing vehicles, I think it should have particular slots that only certain types of items will attach to (like how you have primary weapon and melee weapon slots on your character). They could even have the item(s) sit on a parcel shelf over the rear wheel  :lol:

Edited December 10, 2015 by Tatanko

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I'll finally get to relive the Dirt Bike Kid again.

 

[pillock 850]

That means we'll need a 9V battery to get our bikes operational! JK :P

 

I'm curious to see how they'll handle the "inventory" for the bike. Rather than an open space like the existing vehicles, I think it should have particular slots that only certain types of items will attach to (like how you have primary weapon and melee weapon slots on your character). They could even have the item(s) sit on a parcel shelf over the rear wheel  :lol:

 

Praps we'll be able to find panniers to enable bicycle inventory. In the pics shown in the report, there isn't a "parcel shelf".

 

Also, the light runs off of a dynamo on the front wheel.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Pillock

[xCAPx 349]

Tracking is a must have to deepen the hunting experience and make it more enjoyable. Not to mention it as a necessity for following fleeing animals by different signs and marks they leave. Hooves or paws prints, blood stains and scraped ground, even stomped grass patches will help you with localization if you follow them carefully.

The same system will be used for tracking of survivors by their foot prints or blood stains and also vehicles, which can leave tracks or stains from leaking operation fluids and don't forget destroyed small items as mileages, sign posts and others as shown in the last Status Report. I'm happy to see how such small details generated by dynamic entities will add to the overall authenticity of static world.

 

This is awesome, the other parts too, but THIS IS AWESOME! :D

 

I'm excited for the future of the next few months. Looks so nice - can't wait.

 

The teaser looks so great! Thx devs, have nice holidays :)

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

Those wolf models aren't final, right?

[CornProducts 315]

Tracking 

 

Tracking is a must have to deepen the hunting experience and make it more enjoyable. Not to mention it as a necessity for following fleeing animals by different signs and marks they leave. Hooves or paws prints, blood stains and scraped ground, even stomped grass patches will help you with localization if you follow them carefully.

The same system will be used for tracking of survivors by their foot prints or blood stains and also vehicles, which can leave tracks or stains from leaking operation fluids and don't forget destroyed small items as mileages, sign posts and others as shown in the last Status Report.

 

This is where its at.

[blacktwin0 98]

Praps we'll be able to find panniers to enable bicycle inventory. In the pics shown in the report, there isn't a "parcel shelf".

 

Also, the light runs off of a dynamo on the front wheel.

 

Maybe allow backpacks in place of panniers?

 

[Keck 12]

- snip -

 

That's some real good stuff! What I'd love to know is whether the animals (deer) will run away from the actual noise, e.g. gunshot, or will it rather work like with the infected, that they have some meters for sight, sound and so on. So would we able to make some noise to make them run into our buddy awaiting in the forest on the other side? :)

[joe_mcentire 2074]

Those wolf models aren't final, right?

things to show off in a status report a "rarely" final

Edited December 10, 2015 by joe_mcentire

[Espa 711]

Whew. I am so damn excited. . All of this is going to pump so much more lifeblood into this game! There will finally be more to do than picking off random Infected and hostile players! I can live as a hermit to my heart's desire!

[Espa 711]

Also. .  If Tracking is extended to PLAYERS. . Oh my. It'll create a whole new game of Cat & Mouse.

 

Shot that guy but he ran off. . Oh no, he was bleeding. . There's the trail. . ;D

[joe_mcentire 2074]

honestly KUDOS to the Bratislava branch. The animals look (well some textures obviously not so much) and even more act spot on. This game could even end up as an insiders' tip for hunting (game) enthusiasts if they keep pushing stuff like the one seen in the vid.

Edited December 10, 2015 by joe_mcentire

[IrishSniper 1]

I'm just going to say this, if you guys can pull it off, it will be nothing short of amazing. 

[Espa 711]

I'd really like some updated news on the progress of the Infected! Are we to start seeing greater populations of Infected, different types, better AI?

 

Really, any news of this sort would really be fantastic. I've read the Status Reports and such and I know that you guys are working hard on creating a dual system spawning in towns where players are, as well as in the open where players may not be.

 

Truthfully, anything else that can be said, previewed, or teased would make me the happiest survivor out there ^^

[uptime 47]

If we have wolfs, we need climbing trees! :)

Edited December 11, 2015 by uptime