Drone Archives - Page 4 of 5

Performance Improvements and Completing Packages

This week the team remains focused on performance improvements across the board, and work on tools and systems to make the game experience as smooth and engaging as possible. First, we tackled houses and building interiors. We’ve reimported all of the houses on the map and improved the LOD on the procedural house meshes to make them more performant. We’re putting on our apocalyptic interior designer hats, and roughing up rooms adding holes, cracks, and grunge to spaces, ensuring a trendy beat-up look to every abode.

Our work hasn’t just been targeted at the indoors however. We’ve simplified the foliage system and added solely the foliage necessary for gameplay temporarily while we work out some kinks. The team has improved foliage LOD transitions and are looking at ways to increase game performance while players are running through our wild places. We added tint to rocks allowing players to see that they contain harvestable ore, and fixed a creepy bug in which bamboo didn’t cast a shadow, leaving you to wonder what kind of supernatural thing was disguising itself as bamboo groves.

We continue work on the drones, improving their eye and decision making ability. While trying to teach them what things are worth recording or following, we discovered that they aren’t fans of mass combat currently. They’re pretty good at recognizing mutants, players, and animals and staying on the tail of a lone player, making their way through the map. However, in one of our play testing sessions, seven players were shooting each other, and anything else that moved, only to have a drone move away to film a nearby deer. We’re working on improvements to make them fans of shoot outs and the bloody fields of combat.

The team also made a number of crafting and inventory updates. You can now move around items in your inventory while crafting, and we added better support for switching between pause menu screens. The crafting screen now puts items that you have the ingredients to make at the top, so players can see what they have, and what they still need to harvest more easily. We also squashed a bug that would leave players unable to unequip weapon attachments, and one that was affecting some world containers not accepting drag and drop or double clicks reliably.

Speaking of world containers, we’ve completed the design to our Alohagistics boxes. Old packages from the crowd-sourced delivery company that promised to “Get There Eventually” will be replacing some of the more generic looking crates and containers over the game map. Below is a look at a stack of well worn packages ready for looting.

March 5, 2019

Drone Fixes and New Animations

To start out the week the team made a few campfire improvements. Everyone knows how busy a House leader can be running through the jungle, and keeping their members alive all day. Cooking for all of them takes time and can be a hassle. However, now thanks to the amazing new meat stacking feature we just added, a House leader can cook a delicious dinner for everybody in seconds. Simply stack your meat by kind, and with the touch of button you’ll be making mounds of deer loins and rabbit by the platter. It couldn’t be easier!

We’ve added an ingame bug reporter, and are working out a few issues before we roll it out. The weather after the fracture is unpredictable enough without us inadvertently creating an irony vortex with excessive bug reports about our bug reporter.

Some big improvements were made to Big Bob, our favorite cannibal overlord. We adjusted his speed, gave him a ranged attack, and did a lot of animation work. We created charging and death montages and gave him a taunt animation so he can properly convey his disappointment that a player is not in his cooking pot already. We adjusted a few of his default animation play rates as well, so they look more realistic.

Of course our drones got some love this week too. We’ve added a refueling sequence to the drones, giving players a brief respite from having their movements tracked, and allowing them a window of anonymity. We included some basic wind effects and a dashed line ring to the HUD that rotates according to the cameras current FOV. They will slightly prefer to film animals, mutants, and players from the front now, as there was an issue with them locking onto something’s butt and then filming it all day. It was at the very least, unprofessional. We also fixed a few more issues with them getting stuck in poisoned areas, and excessively circling a target if a tree was anywhere nearby. You can check out the latest round of drone improvements on our YouTube page, and see how good our procedural foliage system is working in these shots below.

Lastly, there’s only 8 days left to win a XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB in our contest. The giveaway ends February 13th. There are multiple ways to enter including joining the Fractured Veil discord server, and reserving your player name.

February 5, 2019

Building a Better Jungle

The team continued work on our autonomous eyes-in-the-skies this week, and made some great progress. The drones now have fuel and refueling logic. Sometime soon they will occasionally need to make trips to a refueling area, giving players brief windows of anonymity. We added Kantan Charts so they will be able to display graphs in the HUD, and cleaned up the drone restarter code to ensure that their coverage of game action is maximized. We also found and fixed a number of bugs including: the drone getting stuck in the tops of trees, problems with moving to new areas properly, a bug where the drone could get confused on which state to be in when too high off the ground, and becoming stuck in place when reaching an interest level of 0, while searching for targets. We had one incidence when the drone ended up stuck in the comm tower base area like a bird in a mall. It wasn’t compelling viewing.

We completed the first pass at a new drone HUD as well. We want the HUD to display useful information for players, but not cram the view with so much that it distracts from the quality and detail of the camera itself. The new HUD contains: a compass, altimeter, various stat tracking widgets, CPU/GPU stats, information about the drone state, and an area for various messages. You can check out all of the various improvements and the new HUD on our YouTube page.

As we fill out the map around the social hub of the game, the Thorcon Power Plant, we’ll soon be working on some of our most densely packed neighborhoods. The team is making sure the parks are sufficiently foreboding, giving them just the right amount of half-working street lights and dilapidated trappings of society. We’re making a materials pass over everything too. Soon metal objects will spark and wood will chip when you hit it because you’re a bad shot, or just like shooting everything.

We’re working on torches and campfires to make sure that the light is visible from a distance at night and the fire gives off smoke. We looked at a few more concept designs for decals, signs, and decorations. We finalized a look for a few crafting items, some new weapons, and the player bank. The team has also made good progress on a procedural foliage tool. Along with our building and road system, we can fill out areas quickly and efficiently with great looking places to explore, and lush environments. Here’s a look at a few areas filled in with the foliage system.

Finally, don’t forget that we’re giving away a XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB. The contest lasts for another 13 days, ending on February 13th. There are multiple ways to enter including joining the Fractured Veil discord server, and reserving your player name.

January 31, 2019

Drone Tracking and Lighting Improvements

We’ve continued our road work this week, improving the roads most traveled and connecting hidden trails. Using the existing network of Lahaina streets as a guideline, we want to ensure that players move throughout the map and avoid bottlenecks. We’re taking some time to make the neighborhood ruins a little bit nicer too. The team is furnishing homes this week. Players will soon have all the comforts of a post-apocalyptic home including: cupboards to open, old refrigerators to search, but not hide in, medicine cabinets, vermin, outdated canned goods, and in some cases, a surprise mutant.

Our game drones have never been better. The team has put a lot of work into their AI and movements. We’ve improved some of their animations and their ability to work their way out of buildings when they get accidentally trapped or stuck. They are really good at tracking things now, and are much better at deciding what is worth filming. We’re currently working on overlay and HUD options, and should have something game ready soon. You can check out all these improvements on our YouTube page.

With many of our TrueSKY problems worked out, we’ve been tweaking our environmental lighting with great results. The fog, water, and sunrises have never looked more gorgeous. Below you can see the fruits of our lighting labor.

There’s no better way to see all the environmental work we’ve done than with a XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB, and we just happen to be giving one away. The contest lasts for another 18 days, ending on February 13th. There are multiple ways to enter including joining the Fractured Veil discord server, and reserving your player name.

January 26, 2019

Contests and Camera Drones

The team finished up a lot of drone work, and made a bunch of improvements to the autonomous cameras that record the game action high above Lahaina. We’ve added improved decision logic to help them decide what’s worth following and what isn’t. We added a time limit to how long a drone can be in non-playable area before it heads back to find something worth recording. In the past, they would occasionally end up trapped inside a building or teleporting underground, but we’ve improved their stuck detection and teleportation logic, so hopefully there will be no more “subterranean exploration mode”. In addition the team added: Improved panning, lighting support, a new spotlight mesh to make them easier to spot by players, basic search patterns, sub. object focus when viewing multiple targets, and the spotlight can now move separately from the camera.

With the drones working better than ever, we took to imgur to talk about the game’s co-stars that share the spotlight with players, the animals and mutants. We made a lot of progress on AI last year to make the game’s enemies challenging and unique. We’ve added pack behavior to our wolves. If 2 or more happen to meet up they will form a pack and start hunting together. If a wolf finds prey or is aggroed it will howl for help, attracting all those around it. Our cannibals can smell blood from a fresh kill and will come to investigate, so players will have to clean up after themselves if they go on a rampage in the jungle. Below you can see some early concept art of one of our cannibals.

You’ll need more than your fists and wits to survive the dangerous wilds of Lahaina. While there are many different weapons in the game, players can always count on having one weapon/resource gathering tool in their inventory, a shark toothed pan. A tongue-in-cheek homage to the numerous shark toothed (leiomano) weapons in the game, the pan isn’t the best weapon, but it will do the job in a pinch, and is easy to clean with some coarse salt and elbow grease. Here’s a good look at what the pan looks like before being used in the field.

Finally, were giving away another XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB. There are multiple ways to enter, including joining the Fractured Veil discord server and reserving your player name. It’s the perfect thing for viewing the deadly beautiful wilds of Lahaina. Our previous winner sent us some pictures of his prize installed in his system and ready to go. The contest ends February 13th just in time for Valentines day.

January 15, 2019

Spears, Clubs, and Drones

Between parties, presents, and cups of cheer we’ve been working away at completing our sprint 30 goals, and have made some great improvements. The ingame drones in particular got a lot of love over the holidays. Our eyes in the sky have much better: pathing across the island, smoother rotations as they turn, better lighting, and a much clearer FOV. In addition, we’ve greatly improved their ability to avoid obstacles, and they are pretty good at following animals now. We’ve also added a thermal camera view so they can film targets better at night.

Big Bob, our favorite cannibal mutant overlord, got some improvements in his stocking too. We’ve added a few special attacks to his repertoire that allow him to throw his weight around in combat, and added a number of new animations to his list movements. The team also made a number of general AI improvements. We increased the overall AI aggro and alert distances for mutants and animals, as well as nabbed a few AI bugs. The horrors of the jungle should be a lot more vigilant and apt to attack now when you get too close.

Lastly, just before the holidays we went to imgur to discuss some of the weapons in the game. We took a deeper look at our weapon modeling process, and adding engravings, features, and details that tell a story about the world, and what that particular weapon had been through. Below you’ll find shots of a few of our more traditional Hawaiian weapons. You can see more 3D models on our sketchfab page, or check out our gallery on the media page.

January 7, 2019

Creating a Social Hub For the Holidays

Sprint 30 has just begun, but this is the last full week before the holidays, and all the travel they bring. Here’s a look at what we’ve accomplished so far, and what we have planned for the rest of the sprint.

We’ll be focusing a lot of time on our resource and crafting system tier 4. The game will see the addition of scrap metal, and different ores that players will be able to pound out of rocks, including a variety of metals and sulfur. We plan on adding the enigmatic element 127 to the resource gathering loop. The fuel that makes veil travel possible and fuels the Thorcon Power Plant will become an important energy resource, and might add a little zing to crafting recipes down the road.

We continue to work on the design for a craftable device to locate 127 on the map. In addition, we discussed where a player might find the element and ways to balance the risk/reward for carrying large quantities. The team made some campfire improvements as well, and made some stacking adjustments for items players cook-up or craft.

We’ve made a lot of improvements to the live streaming drones flying above our version of Lahaina, and that work will continue in this sprint. Recently the drones have had a ton of improvements ranging from smoother pathing and movements, to different FOV and lighting upgrades, including night vision. They avoid trees and buildings now, and can even follow animals and players, providing the people are doing something to catch their attention. Our goal is to further refine their decision making process allowing us to target certain areas, things, or actions. We’re also working on a new HUD that provides both information for players, and gives off a slightly ominous “all-seeing” vibe to the autonomous cameras.

The team will also continue their AI work, specifically on a general “commander” type, and a unique profile for our beloved mutant cannibal leader, Big Bob. We want to refine the mutant’s group tactics and make them all team players when it comes to tearing players to shreds. We’ve recently added the ability for mutants to know all the cover points in an area, and select the one best suited for them, instead of picking an area at random around them. There’s no sense in running twenty feet away, taking fire the whole time, to hide behind a rock, when there’s a perfectly good shell of a car just a few feet away. We briefly discussed a few unique options and actions for Bob down the road to separate him from other commander type AI’s.

There’s a lot of tech work and upgrades this sprint too. We’ll be doing some MYSQL and persistence work for a wide variety of things including: stat persistence, locations discovered, blocked players, player banks, and quickslot ordering. We’re also working on an in-game crash and bug reporter. Players are a step closer to being able to start putting together a crafting nest egg in the game, as the art and system work is done for player banks. We just need a little backend work for persistence, and the hoarding can begin. We discovered a bug where players would see their own deaths again when spawning near their old corpses. Having to relive your death in your mind is bad enough, but we thought being forced to physically watch it again was excessively cruel and fixed the problem.

Lastly, we continue our work inside and in the areas around the game’s social hub, the Thorcon Power Plant. We’ll be looking at some concepts for the power plant’s interior before finishing up the the look and the materials inside. We’re working on designs for smelters, interior improvements, and safe zone areas too. While we made some great trueSKY, materials, and foliage improvements across the map already, we plan on making another global lighting and post processing pass this sprint. Here’s a couple of screenshots highlighting how good the lighting and environment is looking currently.

That’s it for now. We’ll be back later this week with more updates.

December 18, 2018

Building a Mutant Chain of Command

This week marked the end of the old sprint and the beginning of the new. The teams pushed to finish up some last minute details, and start on their new goals. One of the most important tasks recently has been creating a new commander type AI for bosses as well as unique NPC’s in the game, and we made a lot of progress.

Our new commander AI will allow groups of creatures to join forces and share: AI knowledge, decisions, and pathing. It will allow the commander to make tactical decisions for the group, and seek appropriate cover as a group if it turns out their target isn’t quite the easy kill they thought it was. Also, commander AI can add more followers to their group in case the ranks are getting a bit thin or they encounter some like minded horrors in the jungle. Our goal is to make our hulking brutes a bit smarter than the rest, and add a touch of dread to recruitment day in Lahaina.

While the tech team was busy making it easier for the mutants to organize and kill players, the web team was making it easier for players to navigate the website. They have had their heads down for weeks making user flow improvements, and working on messaging issues. In the coming days you’ll notice some tweaks to: the front page, how you login, the player dashboard, and a newly styled referrer page.

We’ve restyled a number of our social media pages too, and now have separate email templates for dev updates, special announcements, and story updates. In addition Jesse has slide templates for callouts and contests. Speaking of which, there’s just a few days left for you to win a brand new AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB. There are multiple ways to enter, but not many days left before the December 15 cutoff date.

While Terry has been swamped with a flood of merge issues, editor problems, and failed commits, we finished up a few drone improvements just in time for the end of sprint 29. While the camera and pathing improvements are noticeable right away, one of the things we are most proud of is the AI improvements we’ve added. We still have a long way to go before the game’s autonomous drones are the voyeuristic cinematographers we have in mind, but they are getting there. Right now they can surreptitiously film wildlife and creatures in their habitat so well, that you expect to hear an Attenborough voice-over to start discussing the life cycle of the typical Maui mutant, and how their secret handshake differs slightly in various regions.

With much of the previous sprint’s work done, we looked forward to our goals for the next. Sprint 30 will focus on finishing up some more drone improvements, adding some polish to the commander AI, and advancing gameplay through improved harvesting & crafting. We’re introducing new types of ore and resources, as well as smelters, but more on that in the weeks to come.

Finally, with all the focus we’ve placed on animals recently, some of the team decided to add their own personal touches to a few animal screenshots. Below you can see some of our favorite treatments to one of our favorite scenes of the life and death struggle in the forests of Lahaina, enjoy!

December 12, 2018

Drone Improvements and Weapon Upgrades

Sprint 29 is coming to an end this week, and we’re finishing up a number of improvements to our drones. Our goal is have a number of autonomous eyes in the sky that stream live footage of the island, broadcasting a number of things ranging from: beauty shots of the landscape, animals in the jungle, and players shooting up the place.

We’ve been working hard to make them as intelligent as possible. The team has added: nightvision, search patterns when they are flying long distances, the ability to change FOV based on what the drone is filming, volumetric shadows to their spotlight, different max view distances based on day vs. night and nightvision vs. spotlight vs. nothing, and panning movements. We’ve also smoothed out their camera work.

In addition to those improvements, we’ve fixed a few issues and bugs that popped up. We solved a problem that was preventing the drones from exiting one state and entering another. The drones will now avoid flying into the sides of buildings and structures, and they will no longer travel too far out to sea. There is still a little work to do on the drone HUD, but the cameras should be broadcasting the beautiful but deadly wilds of Lahaina soon.

Speaking of beautiful landscapes, a good way to appreciate how much work we’ve put into the environment is with a brand new AMD Radeon RX 570 RS 8GB, and we just happen to be giving one away. You still have time to get your entry in by the cutoff date of December 15. There’s multiple ways to enter, but time is running out for your chance win.

We’ve made some animation improvements this week too. A number of third person animations got upgraded so shooting your M1A or bashing someone’s head in with a club is much more pleasing to the eye. We made a pass over all the the weapons in the game to balance their statistics and make them more realistic. All the game’s firearms now have updated statistics for: recoil, range, rate of fire, and damage. We worked some more on thrown weapons, and played around with throwing tools as weapons. Here’s a shot showing just what one motivated individual and their pickaxe can do.

We’ve completed our crafting system tier 3, adding some new recipes, and incorporating resources like leather and energy. 127, the element that made veil travel possible, will be one of the most important sources of energy for players, and we’re working on a 127 detector for them to use. Eventually this craftable device will ping the map with the general location of the element within a certain radius of the player.

Finally, we took to imgur last week to talk a little bit about animals in the game. More than just another enemy to watch out for or a source of food, the animals in Fractured Veil help make the island and the wild places come alive. We’ve put a lot of time into animal AI to make them feel like a natural part of the game, instead of just mounds of leather waiting to be harvested. Our wolves call for help when they discover prey, bears are attracted to the scent of blood, and our prey animals flee in random patterns when they’re being hunted. This week we made a couple much needed adjustments. The bears have been beefed up to make them much tougher and fitting of their place in the food chain, and we discovered that our squirrels needed nerfing. It turned out that the squirrels had more health than most things in the game, including some of the mutants. We decided to take some of that vigor away before they took over, and demanded a no cat policy on the island, and regular acorn tributes. Below you’ll find a couple screenshots of our animals in the wild.

December 7, 2018

Drone Cameras and Interviews

This is the first full week of sprint 29 and the team fixed a number of bugs while finishing up some polish work over the weekend. Some of this work led to a number of temporary hitches that were just too good not to share. First, for a short period of time the Lahaina beach disappeared and the landscape offered all the proof a flat Earther needed to confirm their beliefs. Soon after, we were making a lighting update when we were suddenly veiled to night vision world. While everyone agreed that it looked kind of cool, ultimately everything was a bit too green for our liking.

We went to Imgur with another post about building the world and the structures in it. We discussed how we’ve tried to balance making the island lush enough to show what nature will do if left on its own for 60+ years, and still make players feel isolated and abandoned. We talked about how much time we’ve spent making an atmospheric system that lets us experiment with apocalyptic overtones to add a bit of dread to the normally cheery Lahaina. The team got a lot of good feedback, but we’d love to hear more of your thoughts and comments. Someone is almost always around to answer any questions and listen to your suggestions on our discord. Head on over and let us know what you think.

Our ongoing AI work continues in sprint 29. We’re improving our cover generation system so our mutants don’t stand in front of a wall of bullets when encountering a group. They’ll zig and zag instead of running in easy to hit straight lines, sorry no combat rolls yet, and ranged attackers will do their best to herd players in easy to claw groups. We’re adding a new “Alpha” AI for Big Bob allowing him to command other mutants to do his bidding while he shuffles into combat.

We’ve begun the third tier of our crafting and resource gathering system. Players will be able to skin animals and gather leather now, as well as find the volatile element 127 and convert it into energy to power equipment. While the fuel that powers the Thorcon Power Plant and made Veil travel possible is rare and dangerous, it might give a little kick to certain crafting recipes down the road. We’re adding more recipes for craftable gear and are taking a thorough look at resource availability. In addition to providing players with necessary ingredients, we want harvesting resources to help drive players around the map and encourage them to explore new areas.

One of the biggest areas of focus this sprint is going to be improving the camera drones that fly around the island filming what’s going on. We’re going to be doing some advanced movement work, and add audio recognition so they can detect things like a battle, and move towards it to capture the action. We have a lot of HUD improvements planned for the drones too, giving them a more authoritarian feel while still providing location details.

Speaking of drones, an interview we did with PCGamesN magazine recently digs into our work on the game’s eyes in the sky. We talked about what goes into making the autonomous drones work in the game and our plans for their future. Down the road we’d like to have a number of them, each with their own specialty and directorial eye, capturing and streaming all aspects of the game including: combat, wildlife, and social interactions. Check out the interview and learn more about our plans for the automated cinematographers here.

November 13, 2018

Tag: Drone