DayZ Frostline Dev Blog Week 24

[scott.bowen 44]

⚠️Disclaimer⚠️
Please be aware: Information shared in our development blog represents a work in progress, not the final product. Contents and features discussed are subject to change before release. We aim to provide insight and foster community engagement, but details may evolve as development continues. Thank you for joining us on this journey, with the understanding that what you see here is a glimpse into the process.

Introduction

Welcome to another installment of the Dev Blog, where we're providing you with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the DayZ Frostline Expansion. Our goal is to be more transparent by showcasing our creative process, challenges, and achievements. We want to dedicate these to the DayZ community, who have shown deep commitment and interest in the inner workings of DayZ's development.

This time around, we are peeking into Skybox and Weather changes. 
For next blog, we will get to look at some of the "Points of interests".

 

Sneak Peek 

Skybox

Quote

Building on our legacy with Chernarus and Livonia, our goal was to craft a unique skybox texture to enrich Sakhals atmosphere distinctively. For this endeavor, a blend of Cirrus and Alto/Cirrocumulus clouds emerged as the perfect match.

Our vision was clear, shaped by extensive exploration of the Kamchatkan region through Google Street View, complemented by our own collection of winter sky photographs taken right from our office. This process enabled us to envision the ideal backdrop that truly represents the cold and world we aim to immerse our players in.

-- Florian (DOJ), Environmental Designer

 

Spoiler

 

Wind & Predicting the weather

Quote

We now have more control over weather elements, especially wind, allowing us to create dynamic weather patterns and unexpected shifts. While these patterns won't occur in a predetermined manner, we are providing more hints (for example, the direction of the snow particles) to help predict these weather changes. This increased predictability should encourage you to better prepare for the harsh snowstorms of Sakhal or the thunderstorms of Livonia.
The goal is not only to make your gameplay more immersive but also to give a strategic advantage to those who can anticipate challenges from the terrains, observe their surroundings, and respond accordingly.

-- Özgür Nergis, Game Designer

 

 

Fog & View Distance 

Expanding more on the customization of weather elements, we are also enhancing fog functionality to have more control. Currently, fog is driven by overcast and distance fog values defined by the config, which is quite limiting. With the release of Frostline, both the dev team and modders will have full dynamic control over the fog through a new script API. Check out the demonstration video below to see new fog in action. 

The fog will now affect the visibility of the sky, which presents more possibilities for those of us who enjoy a good gloomy "Silent Hill" vibe.

Spoiler

 

For PC we are increasing view distance. This upgrade substantially expands the ranges and you will retain full control within settings. Due to current performance and testing limitations, we are not able to extend these improvements to console platforms at this time but will consider other platforms in the future.

Quote

In our quest to improve view distances, the team didn’t just agree—they firmly believed it was a change whose time had come. With Sakhal, we seized the opportunity to implement this enhancement. We’re excited for you to experience this across all maps, and we anticipate it will benefit the modding community.

-- Aleš Stupka, Programmer

 

 

Read More and Wishlist 

 

[akula692008 45]

Finally, you have added the option to change the drawing range! Please also consider disabling blurring when aiming in the settings.

[Kuzyn. 34]

1 hour ago, akula692008 said:

Finally, you have added the option to change the drawing range! Please also consider disabling blurring when aiming in the settings.

It was in the game for years, just hidden under presets options...

 

Im wondering, if you want to increase render distance and the game is constantly running worse and worse from update to update, what disaster will happen with 1.26?

This is insane on 1.25. Losing almost half FPS when entering towns on Livonia or Cherno (unmodded). Partially it helps to disable antialiasing but not always. Lowering any graphics setting from extreme to low does not change anything, only changing resolution makes a difference. What kind of joke is that? Or what happened that 1440p is so unplayable for past few updates?

[mobbie 9]

Would be nice get framerate fix for AMD 7xxx gpus for towns on the coast 

[DefectiveWater 537]

Keep the dev blogs coming, these are exciting and informative to see.

Good to see that there's more to this than just Sakhal update.

[DefectiveWater 537]

1 minute ago, mobbie said:

Would be nice get framerate fix for AMD 7xxx gpus for towns on the coast 

It has been an issue with AMD cards ever since RX 5000 series if not older. It was supposedly fixed at one point with a driver update but that's about it. Seems like it's an issue on AMD's end.

Would be great if devs could urge AMD to fix the issue if it really is AMD's fault.

[mobbie 9]

Just now, DefectiveWater said:

It has been an issue with AMD cards ever since RX 5000 series if not older. It was supposedly fixed at one point with a driver update but that's about it. Seems like it's an issue on AMD's end.

Would be great if devs could urge AMD to fix the issue if it really is AMD's fault.

Could be both only ever hit %60 at 1440p pulling 140w

[DefectiveWater 537]

5 minutes ago, mobbie said:

Could be both only ever hit %60 at 1440p pulling 140w

My 4060 doesn't hit 100% in towns either but the FPS is stable. From my memory it goes from 90-95% out of towns to 50-70% in towns. Paired with a Ryzen 5600 (not great, not terrible)

A friend of mine has RX 6000 series GPU and he just can't play the game. No matter what he does, he gets 30-40 FPS at most on lowest settings.
That same GPU of his plays Cyberpunk 2077 with raytracing (and FSR and frame gen) without issues... So culprit is clearly DayZ/AMD.

The only reason I went green with my last GPU upgrade was DayZ.

Edit: apologies for going off-topic.

Edited June 14 by DefectiveWater

[blueshorts44 46]

5 hours ago, scott.bowen said:

 

Fog & View Distance 

For PC we are increasing view distance. This upgrade substantially expands the ranges and you will retain full control within settings. Due to current performance and testing limitations, we are not able to extend these improvements to console platforms at this time but will consider other platforms in the future.

 

 

Is this going to also fix the blurry and melted textures of buildings at distance. If not there should be an option to render houses futher. What i am talking about - https://imgur.com/a/sjEI7gA

[JerseyD 13]

"For PC we are increasing view distance" I really hope this is for a reason, for some higher caliber reason, if you know what I mean hint, hint

[JerseyD 13]

Don't have problems with FPS. What I can say on max settings in 1440p it heats up 3080 like hell, but it looks amazing. Even on low settings views of the sky/forest/sunsets in Dayz are weirdly incredible, so in some way players who always play on low have benefits of high end graphic cards. Please, don't forget about undergrounds and Dayz is struggling from not having at least one long range high caliber sniper rifle.Once you have PlateCarrier on snipers are nothing for you, drop to uncon distance drops from 700m (no armor) to 220m (!!!!!). This is insane and doesn't have to be like that, in one moment long range sniping turns to CQB sniping. Please, add higher caliber capable to do significant damage not only within 220m. 220m is EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY low. 

[Jevez 34]

This blog is great but the fog/view distance changes especially are huge, this has been one of my biggest gripes for a while now. If I'm understanding it correctly then this is one of the best changes in a LONG time.. THANK YOU.

[JerseyD 13]

20 hours ago, Jevez said:

This blog is great but the fog/view distance changes especially are huge, this has been one of my biggest gripes for a while now. If I'm understanding it correctly then this is one of the best changes in a LONG time.. THANK YOU.

Best changes will be when sniping won't be limited with 220m when target has plate carrier on. But yea, the direction where the game goes now is really exiting. And devblogs kinda bring back the vibe of 2014 when it was active too

[Girth Brooks 570]

So ya'll take away our view distance slider years ago to cater to consoles, and now you give it back in a less customizable format? Once again the decisions here don't make any sense.

[Rustycaddy 14]

2 minutes ago, Girth Brooks said:

So ya'll take away our view distance slider years ago to cater to consoles, and now you give it back in a less customizable format? Once again the decisions here don't make any sense.

There was never a "view distance slider" nor did they take anything away from us. Everything you've stated was invented in your imagination.

[Girth Brooks 570]

Never played the mod I guess?

[mYNDe1337 3]

Can you add the option to disable mouse smoothing?

[Pyongo Bongo 235]

Very "cool" xD

I am glad to see devblogs with all these technical changes again, it feels like the development just got revitalised 🙂

I often thought that the fog would have the best of both worlds if we sometimes had completely dense "silen thill" fog, extremely spooky and atmospheric!

And sometimes completely clear weather, because currently the gray film over every area of the game takes away a lot from all the scenery and colours in the game.

Currently we only have medium fog always and everyhwere, which means it's never spooky and atmospheric, but always ugly past maybe 50 or 100 meters. I am glad to see a change on this 🙂

We sadly have the worst of both worlds currently. No spookyness of close dense fog, no crisp colours and scenery from 0 fog ever and we have to strain to make out details/players in the gray unrealistic sludge.

The view distance change is also awesome, I have always been increasing view distance and scene complexity in the config file under documents.

One problem I have here currently, is that it no longer lets me increase the scene complexity.

It would be great if we can increase that either in-game, or in the config again. Trees and buildings morph from high definition to low definition models/textures constantly otherwise.

I am not sure about this, I assume scene complexity helps with this.

Whenever I set it to a value above 1000000 and launch the game, it gets reset to 1 mil.

I used to have it on 1.5 or 2 million. Please let us do this again for people with powerful PCs 🙂

Thanks DEVS!!! 😄

Edited June 22 by Pyongo Bongo

[Drift13b88 31]

Beautiful Work 😍

[Mopl 1]

I like the direction in which the game is developing, but I would like to add that in the skybox it would be nice to see the northern lights at night, which is typical for the northern part of the real Kamchatka. 

[JerseyD 13]

Mopl there surely will be northern lights (or wobo will have to delete his channel for 10th time)