.63 ETA ?

[sneakydude 480]

On 10/15/2017 at 6:12 AM, exacomvm said:

Basically from what i see DayZ .63 has few features that lacks to be worth experimental.
- Weapon animations ( should've been finished long time ago, that should not take more than half week for a single person )
- New Loot System?

And thats pretty much it, rest would be implementing the actual modding and base building and polishing some already existing stuff such as the UI functions/design, inertia n so on.

I don't see why they can't release something like .62.9 with the .63 features in such long time, obviously probs because they want to release fully featured game that will blow everyone's mind, but again: Why the experimental is for? I think it would not hurt if they dropped the improved gamescom version into exp.

 

There is a reason why so many testers on Experimental will not respond to this type of comment. Most of which will not even go to great lengths in explaining how very wrong this post is.

.63 has nothing to do with just a couple systems, it is the completed package then we can focus on adding in more to it. We all may not understand the full true development of what the devs have accomplished until it is handed to us.

This is what will happen when .63 hits, is that it? thinking we will have a completely new designed game or something... That is my best guess.

Expect more information from the devs once it gets close to .63 until then try not to speculate on false negatives. The tester group knows what i am referring too... things always change.

[Yuval 221]

On 10/15/2017 at 0:12 PM, exacomvm said:

- Weapon animations ( should've been finished long time ago, that should not take more than half week for a single person )

Lol. Animations take way more than half a year. I think one of the most sought after and highest paying non-managing jobs in the game development industry is technical animator. This isn't Pivot animation or something haha.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Yuval

[exacomvm 101]

1 hour ago, Yuval said:

Lol. Animations take way more than half a year. I think one of the most sought after and highest paying non-managing jobs in the game development industry is technical animator. This isn't Pivot animation or something haha.

I could agree if that was for GTA V or similiar game where's tons of variety + thousands of cutscene mocaps. But for a single character i highly doubt. Oh and i don't think that GTA V animations took over half year, cause it's only mocaps and euphoria engine for the physics which makes stuff kinda automated when players/people fall n stuff.
If there's 1 animator and 1 mocap actor and 1 coder/scripter then maybe it takes a half year for DayZ.
Remember that there's tons of scripts/codes and techniques that makes the entire animating alot faster ( talking especially about the blending from animation A to B ).
 

Edited November 1, 2017 by exacomvm

[Yuval 221]

1 hour ago, exacomvm said:

I could agree if that was for GTA V or similiar game where's tons of variety + thousands of cutscene mocaps. But for a single character i highly doubt. Oh and i don't think that GTA V animations took over half year, cause it's only mocaps and euphoria engine for the physics which makes stuff kinda automated when players/people fall n stuff.
If there's 1 animator and 1 mocap actor and 1 coder/scripter then maybe it takes a half year for DayZ.
Remember that there's tons of scripts/codes and techniques that makes the entire animating alot faster ( talking especially about the blending from animation A to B ).
 

I don't think you have a single clue what you're talking about.

[exacomvm 101]

Just now, Yuval said:

I don't think you have a single clue what you're talking about.

Can say the same about you.
So please tell me how long it takes animate something like that? ( full 2mins )

 

[Sqeezorz 839]

These sequences in "TLou" are made with "full-motion-capture", it is almost comparable to the "blue screen technique" in film. Since no animation is controlled or interrupted by a key command. And what is still very important, this is not an MMO. (no server controlling the environment, a very big difference).

Work-Time verification is sensless.

[Yuval 221]

12 hours ago, exacomvm said:

Can say the same about you.
So please tell me how long it takes animate something like that? ( full 2mins )

 

Stop being dense and ignorant. Try looking up how animations are done for gameplay. Cutscenes are way different than gameplay. Learn how animation *actually works* before you make uneducated and rather annoying statements. Just looking how one side of animations are done in youtube doesn't make you a game dev wizard. There is so much under the scenes you'd have no idea.

[exacomvm 101]

1 hour ago, Yuval said:

Stop being dense and ignorant. Try looking up how animations are done for gameplay. Cutscenes are way different than gameplay. Learn how animation *actually works* before you make uneducated and rather annoying statements. Just looking how one side of animations are done in youtube doesn't make you a game dev wizard. There is so much under the scenes you'd have no idea.

From how you're saying this i suppose you work as animator/programmer yourself.
I guess what you're trying to say is that the animation system is the hard part also various things working in a studio, such as polishing the system over and over again till it's perfect, in that case yes it can take even 5years.
But i had in mind doing animations after the animation system is complete does not take long, unless again needs a perfection and overall the studio is crappy ( constantly delaying stuff, senior artists gone somewhere etc ).

Once the animation system is built ( which is already done in DayZ ), the rest is same as doing mocap animations. For the the animation system programming looks pretty similiar to VFX creation or even procedural texturing. Atleast in such interface as UE4 which is simplified alot imo compared to for example what DayZ devs dealt with.

Here's pretty decent system built by a single person ( he also mentioned that he has no programming knowledge/skills ), probs took like a week or two for him to build this, so imagine what full team can do?
 

And here's how a half year of work looks by a single amateur animator/programmer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM0hsMbZ-Gg

Anyway, enlighten me, how come for a team of professionals can it take half year to rewrite animation system and do some mocaps? ( keep in mind that they're experienced and trial and error should be minimal for them making the progress ALOT faster than it would take for completely new programmers who has no clue about that engine ).
imo that's how it works:
1. Rewrite/Improve animation system: 1-2months
2. Animating/troubleshooting: 1month
3. Polishing/Problem solving: up to 1month.
If somewhere is a huge mistake ( which most likely wont happen ) repeat from 1 and then you have a half year.

Keep in mind that i consider these timings for a highly skilled and talented team who works pretty intense and not like 2-3hours a day.

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by exacomvm

[Seitan 161]

Increased social media activity regarding Dayz lately. Maybe something happening soon? :)

[IMT 3190]

I see there is a lot of misunderstanding regarding the new and old engine. I'll try to explain with what I know and my knowledge.

They started off with the engine of Take On Helicopters which is I believe a modified version of the Real Virtuality 3 engine, the engine behind ArmA 2. The DayZ Standalone development team had to work with this engine which had very limited documentation and information. In order to make it work for DayZ they had to modify the engine severely. At some point they decided that constantly modifying and working with this engine was a pain in the ass and also came to the conclusion that this engine wouldn't work with their vision.

So they started working on the new Enfusion engine which is either a brand new engine or the old engine almost completely rewritten. Since the Standalone was already in Early Access and to feed the players at least some content and changes they had to work with the old engine while developing the Enfusion engine along the side of it. They also had to implement certain modules to work with the old engine for example the pushing infected was because the AI was already on the new controller while the player is still on the old. Not only are they changing engines, they also went with a new scripting language instead of the old and outdated SQF which will increase performance as well.

At this moment they stopped working on the current build of DayZ and the old engine except for major bug fixes, etc. They made this choice because any work put in would be a big waste of time because it's going to get replaced in the future anyway.

All this takes time, patience and understanding, something which some people lack more than others. 0.63 will be a new milestone for the development of DayZ and it will be glorious!

Regarding the animations, @exacomvm I believe you are heavily underestimating the work compared to your example of GTA V. If we take for example a weapon in GTA V, it will have animations for: taking out the weapon, putting away the weapon, reloading, iron sight and probably a few more. Now exactly how far they want to go with the weapon system in DayZ is unclear but if they're going as far as Escape From Tarkov, GTA 5 will be nothing compared to that. In EFT you have animations for: taking out the weapon, putting it away, reloading, checking the magazine capacity, checking if the gun is chambered, checking the gun itself, chambering the gun, taking out the mag, putting in a mag, loading a mag, unloading a mag, adding attachments, removing attachments, iron sight, secondary sights and much more.

EFT has the most complex weapon system ever seen in a game at this time. DayZ's weapon system will be complex as well and that's because both game heavily focus on realism while GTA V focuses on gameplay and storyline.

Hopefully my rambling will help some of you or will shed some light on some subjects.

When will DayZ 0.63 come? I have no idea but I hope as soon as possible. But I have time, patience and understanding. I don't want the developers to rush anything. For me personally, for DayZ it's quality over quantity.

[exacomvm 101]

9 hours ago, IMT said:

If we take for example a weapon in GTA V, it will have animations for: taking out the weapon, putting away the weapon, reloading, iron sight and probably a few more ........ In EFT you have animations for: taking out the weapon, putting it away, reloading, checking the magazine capacity, checking if the gun is chambered, checking the gun itself, chambering the gun, taking out the mag, putting in a mag, loading a mag, unloading a mag, adding attachments, removing attachments, .....

 

Probs i will start to piss off everyone here already.
That definitely gives an impact on animating time and especially animation system, but i HIGHLY doubt that even 10-20 extra anims gives that much of a difference, keep in mind that these animations is just like 2-4sec each and maybe like 40% of then is being reused.
Now combine it all, lets say weapon has 20 animations, there's 20 weapons: So 20x20x3.5 = 1400sec of total animation + the character movement ~100sec, so total is like 25minutes of main animation.
Also including some props, meele weapons we can add more 25minutes, so total is 50min of animation.
Give the job to 5 animators assuming they do hand made animations, 1min of animation should take around a day or a day and half for experienced animator.
So 5 people, 50mins = 10-15days. I am sure that DayZ uses mostly Motion capture ( just like 99% of movement you see in AAA games is motion capture including the controls you make ), so most of the animations is done very quickly..
Then it's a programmers turn to attach/import these animations into his "Animation System" and make it work ( and here i have no clue how long it takes, but obviously not a half year, probs triple the time of the animating itself, maybe building the system + animating + importing animations can definitely take half year+ ).


Just to clear things out i was talking about animating after animation system is done.

Edited November 2, 2017 by exacomvm

[Normalement 7]

On 12.10.2017 at 4:24 PM, nl said:

2 weeks - no

2 months - probably not

2018 - most likely

Have a look at what I've found somewhere a few time ago:

Edited November 2, 2017 by Normalement

[IMT 3190]

3 hours ago, exacomvm said:

Probs i will start to piss off everyone here already.
That definitely gives an impact on animating time and especially animation system, but i HIGHLY doubt that even 10-20 extra anims gives that much of a difference, keep in mind that these animations is just like 2-4sec each and maybe like 40% of then is being reused.
Now combine it all, lets say weapon has 20 animations, there's 20 weapons: So 20x20x3.5 = 1400sec of total animation + the character movement ~100sec, so total is like 25minutes of main animation.
Also including some props, meele weapons we can add more 25minutes, so total is 50min of animation.
Give the job to 5 animators assuming they do hand made animations, 1min of animation should take around a day or a day and half for experienced animator.
So 5 people, 50mins = 10-15days. I am sure that DayZ uses mostly Motion capture ( just like 99% of movement you see in AAA games is motion capture including the controls you make ), so most of the animations is done very quickly..
Then it's a programmers turn to attach/import these animations into his "Animation System" and make it work ( and here i have no clue how long it takes, but obviously not a half year, probs triple the time of the animating itself, maybe building the system + animating + importing animations can definitely take half year+ ).


Just to clear things out i was talking about animating after animation system is done.

I'm not an animator nor do I barely know anything about it. But I do know that a game like DayZ has a shit ton more animations than a game like GTA V.

[Mantasisg 172]

On 2017-11-02 at 11:42 PM, Normalement said:

Have a look at what I've found somewhere a few time ago:

After latest statusreport it makes sense, though maybe not stable release but first exp build. I'd expect then exp builds to span till forever.

[plasma (DayZ) 17]

Still don't think this game will ever be finished.  At this point it's past it's prime.  Plus too many games coming out.   I'm really just disappointed in their progress.  

[sneakydude 480]

17 hours ago, plasma (DayZ) said:

Still don't think this game will ever be finished.  At this point it's past it's prime.  Plus too many games coming out.   I'm really just disappointed in their progress.  

Yeah but you still will play it in 2019.

[freschmeet 0]

On 11/16/2017 at 9:02 AM, sneakydude said:

Yeah but you still will play it in 2019.

I'm not sure how many actually will play in 2019. Or 2018, or whenever we see substantial change. Yes, I will play when 0.63 and other major releases 'hit the shelves,' but the real question is: are the improvements enough to have a successful game? I'm not sure that's possible any longer. The longer developers take to provide improved content to players, the more technology debt they build and the more competition they face. 

I think the problem that developers and designers failed to appreciate early in DayZ development is the consequences of releasing a game in a playable Alpha state, rather than focusing on releasing an 'engine' and improving it until it's correct. Camelot Unchained is going about their development in this way: build the engine and make it right, build a way to promote procedural development, then build functionality and 'fun.' I'm not anxious about the release of Camelot Unchained over it's last couple years of development because they never gave investors/backers the impression that 'this is the game.' DayZ standalone released an Alpha in 2013 and has not made significant progress that is apparent to players in 4+ years. That's just wild! 

Anyway, I am hopeful for two things as it relates to DayZ: 1 - 0.63 will come out before a better survival shooter arrives; and 2 - the wait will be worth it and I will be wrong in my opinion that any changes are 'too little, too late.' 

[BeefBacon 1185]

31 minutes ago, freschmeet said:

I'm not sure how many actually will play in 2019. Or 2018, or whenever we see substantial change. Yes, I will play when 0.63 and other major releases 'hit the shelves,' but the real question is: are the improvements enough to have a successful game? I'm not sure that's possible any longer. The longer developers take to provide improved content to players, the more technology debt they build and the more competition they face. 

Does DayZ really face much competition, though? Escape from Tarkov probably scratches a lot of people's cheeki breeki survival game itch, and there's one or two other survival games that seem... competent, but there's not really much in the way of direct competition to DayZ. DayZ is DayZ. Nothing else really comes close, and that has been the case for years now. Hell, remember H1Z1? The game that was supposed to blow DayZ out of the water? Remember the one million survival games that have come out over the past 5 or so years? They don't come close. DayZ is always going to cater to a niche market. Modding will make it more accessible, but people are going to mod DayZ - not some other random survival game.

[philbur 476]

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎02 at 5:42 PM, Normalement said:

Have a look at what I've found somewhere a few time ago:

Yeah...well...I personally don't use the full timeline to base the SA development progress on.

That is misleading when you consider that the full-blown re-write and Enfusion effort only began, when, about halfway between initial alpha launch and 0.62?

Add to that the overly-simplistic "math" not accounting for the plethora of influences governing their output and focus in relation to each game module and tasking.

Sure, the dedicated early adopters that really started the ball rolling will most certainly be ones to have qualified opinions on the development progress/processes....but hey, everyone wants to have their kick at the can, understandably.

I also am "starting" to regard the SRs as a bit of a joke in the sense that nothing of substance comes forward into the builds afterwards. (and therefore they read like blogs from people just tinkering around with a hobby of theirs and not as official media that is meaningful to a customer). 

So, taken under these pretenses, I try not to expect "anything" to happen....so when is doesn't, my blissful ignorance is justified.

When the info was released to us about the pending "GamesCon Demo" I admit that I was stoked, but I quickly came back down to Earth when I finally saw it...as it came across to me as being the "idea" of something that will eventually become a "plan" which will find its way to the development table, and might one day be implemented.

I am using that same perspective towards RTM 1.0 and I regard the inevitable release of Beta as being just another (albeit long-overdue) content update.

I started in the SA back in 2014...but the end of 2015 seems more like the "Start" of it all...once the problems with the ARMA2 engine were finally realized and the decision to completely re-engine the game was reached. Call it Fanboy Math if you want, but my slow painful wait for the Devs to get their act together therefore only stretches across two full years. In that time I have admittedly grown somewhat jaded towards news from the team regarding what their "next steps" are and I associate a lot of that with poor oversight and not necessarily with poor development skills. (I don't presume to have the slightest insight in to how a game developer can do his/her job any more efficiently). What is far easier to gauge is the effectiveness of the administration of a project because you can see more of the macro performance of a project compared to the declared milestones and ultimate end goals.

As of now, if the Beta drops before March I will consider it a massive feather in the teams' caps...but if it drags into late Spring/Summer I honestly don't imagine there will be too many others who share my level of optimism and patience and I don't foresee this great project reaching it's original potential.

That not only seems like a terrible waste of time...but also a waste of talent... It would be well for the teams to remember that their careers might depend on the success of this venture and a large metric of that success is governed by their team leader's abilities to manage successfully.

ETA? Bah! There's no point in asking if there is no way of systemically measuring.

John Carmack said it first and best. "It will be done when it's done" (The server player counts will ultimately decide if it was worth it IMHO)

This is just a bit of a vent, I suppose.... I'll be better after I get killed on the coast a few times this evening... 

Edited November 20, 2017 by philbur

[green_mtn_grandbob 594]

They got burnt in the past by setting deadlines  and dates, so i don't blame them for not giving out to much malformation anymore 

 

 

 

 

 

[sneakydude 480]

I know i am starting to lose interest in dayz, not sure how others feel. Modding was on the top of my lists but so many other survival games coming out ahead of dayz. I dunno guess we will have to see.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

 

[cirkular 178]

Well, I enjoy what I have from this. For this kind of money, for early access, I already had a great deal of gameplay honestly. And that's for a game that's without any clear story content. Just kill the expectations and the wait. I'm not worried about the player base and size. They'll come back. More new players will show up. It's a good shooter with a good game idea for a change. Still, you don't get all these glitches in early access with Bethesda titles, do you. You get it AFTER the final release :D But seriously, anyone burned out, or in doubt of Dayz's success compared to other released or upcoming titles or with only disappointments so far: make a break, come back later. Play those games. Play other games. That's how I did it since spring. And lately I'm forced to, because of my graphics card's sudden death. So, this week, I'll be mostly posting stuff on these forums :D

[-MadTommy 367]

On 22/11/2017 at 4:56 AM, cirkular said:

anyone burned out, or in doubt of Dayz's success compared to other released or upcoming titles or with only disappointments so far: make a break, come back later. Play those games. Play other games. That's how I did it since spring. And lately I'm forced to, because of my graphics card's sudden death. So, this week, I'll be mostly posting stuff on these forums :D

I took a break about 3 years ago.  I check every 6 months or so... its so bloody depressing. 

 

The only thing i'm surprised at is the glacial pace they have managed to maintain over all these years.  Impressive.

Edited November 28, 2017 by -MadTommy

[Ree' 0]

On 20/11/2017 at 10:03 PM, BeefBacon said:

Does DayZ really face much competition, though? Escape from Tarkov probably scratches a lot of people's cheeki breeki survival game itch, and there's one or two other survival games that seem... competent, but there's not really much in the way of direct competition to DayZ. DayZ is DayZ. Nothing else really comes close, and that has been the case for years now. Hell, remember H1Z1? The game that was supposed to blow DayZ out of the water? Remember the one million survival games that have come out over the past 5 or so years? They don't come close. DayZ is always going to cater to a niche market. Modding will make it more accessible, but people are going to mod DayZ - not some other random survival game.

"Hell, remember H1Z1? The game that was supposed to blow DayZ out of the water"

Judging by con current players, both have blown Dayz out of the water, 

 

On the Status reports they keep releasing, Its confusing players too much, just say they have nothing to report, rather than write 100 lines of text beating about every bush in Cherno, too pretty much say they have nothing....