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+---- Thread: Starbound [Winter Update!] (/showthread.php?tid=51948)
Today was a super productive day, our programmers have been fixing things up all over the place ready for our next round of work.
We managed to get all 360 of the craftable melee weapons into the game, formatted nicely for use with the dye system so you can customize their look a little.
This took me from 2pm until 4:30am without a break and was totally worth it!
The weapons all match their ore colours nicely and compliment the armor that goes with that ore.
We also managed to get fiery and electric melee weapons in. A bunch of new flying NPC behaviours.
We reworked mountains and canyon terrain to be more playable and interesting.
Weve just started using google hangouts as a virtual office and I cant recommend it enough. The combination of voice chat, webcam, screenshare, youtube, google docs etc all in one nice package is wonderful for productivity
First off that explosion animation I promised yesterday:
So what did we do today.
First off we finally got all of the respawn animations in game. Theyve been ready for implementation for a while, but actually configuring the cutscenes, making sure everything happens at exactly the right moment took forever!
It was one of those fiddly change a value by 0.01 seconds and reload the game to see if it looks better things. Took a total of around 4 straight hours of that. But its awesome to have them in!
Work continued on beds, we have occupied art for all of the different kinds of beds now.
Also a nifty little sleep animation has been set up.
We corrected a performance problem that occured when you have access to every crafting recipe in the game. The list was just so huge that it was slowing the game down. Now the engine handles that intelligently.
We now have per monster type damage response which means different monsters can react differently to strikes of different intensity. (Thats a lot of differents)
Direct 3D support is taking a bit longer than expected, but should be completed soon.. the 3 renderers we use have had to be combined into one monster renderer due to some differences in the way directx handles things like lines, and it turns out opengl code had leaked out of where it needed to be! Its all under control now though, wont be long.
Much of the ore based furniture is complete, its absolutely wonderful stuff but itd be far too much of a spoiler to show off so no screenshots this time.
To make up for that, heres a terrible Its-5am-and-I-dont-want-to-wait-for-the-video-to-upload quality recording of the human intro sequence (which is work in progress!)
Were putting the finishing touches on the direct 3d code. Weve cleaned up the humanoid code so we can make use of various frames to create new animations (like sleeping).
Id also like to introduce Copic, an AI programmer working on new behaviors for NPCs and Monsters. Copic has worked on a bunch of games (19, he informs me!) you probably know the name of, including AI in games like Assassins Creed. He made his first commit today. *Blows party whistle*.
Weve also fixed another bunch of bugs, finished up the last bits and pieces of the knockback stuff we were working on yesterday and tweaked some visual stuff.
Today our coders have been hard at work fixing bugs, cleaning up code in places that needed it, and messing with DirectX stuff. Theyre also still working on that super advanced fish A.I. and doing more with flying NPCs.
We have also been working on craftable furniture. Each tier will have its own unique theme with a unique look.
Heres a sneak peak of one furniture set:
Hope you liked our little update and see you tomorrow!
So Sunday is supposed to be our day off, which of course means we spend the time working on Starbound.
Everyone has Secret sunday projects underway that I couldnt describe to you if I wanted to, because I dont know what they are.
Its a fun way to end the stress of the week and have a break from the important stuff. Bartwe in particular is teasing me, referring to his project as [redacted].
Kyren has more or less completed Direct 3D support, which turned into a much bigger task than shed hoped. But its almost done now and very worth the trouble.
Heres a super heavily work in progress Avian intro, weve been working on adding additional sound effects to it today (though theyre not in this video).
Today we set about revamping the examination system. Where examining an object used to bring up a tool tip with a description of the object in it (still accessible when the object is obtained). Your character will now comment on the object directly. Not only that but each race will comment on objects differently. This leads to some vary interesting scenarios where, for example, you might ask your friend playing as an avian to examine an object you found in an Avian tomb because their knowledge might be greater than your own.
Of course this means I need to write 6 descriptions for everything you can investigate. Which is well over 6000+ descriptions. So you can guess what I spent the day doing.
I managed to complete over 800 so far. Quite a way to go on that then!
Weve also been running a bunch of tests on D3D mode, completing the last of the ore based furniture, working on beds, finishing the next intro, adding a ton of new sounds and more.
Waz everyone! I guess its my turn to supply you with the daily update!
Its a small-ish update today Tiy continues his description marathon. So far all of the Apex objects are done and each have 7 different descriptions for every race, which we tested ingame today. It was actually pretty fun! A lot of the objects have descriptions that tie into each other examining a cupboard as an Apex would reminisce about a past rebellion, but examining it as a Glitch would notice a hidden camera inside.
Even though D3D was implemented yesterday, it had a couple of bugs that needed to be combed over, so thanks to Kyren its totally completely in and working now. I tried it myself a few hours ago the performance is very noticeable as a Windows user.
Furniture work continues between George and I, weve completed all of the tier-based furniture bar the final tier, which were trying to find a theme suitably awesome enough to merit the highest tier. Each tier will have a basic set of craftable furniture, and weve tried to get as many themes as we can into it, ranging from antique cast-iron, to futuristic sci-fi, to spikes and eyeballs. The sets consist of: Chair, Table, Switch/Console, Bed, Light and Door. I also did a bit of work on the player ships, which are one away from being completely finished.
Direct 3d / Direct X support is now complete. Its made a huge difference on cards that dont support OpenGL all that well. A massive performance increase. So thats great.
Legris is working on the Floran intro, which is suitably creepy.
Rho has completed the final tier of ore based objects.
George is starting on the last of the dungeon art.
I continue to write descriptions. Im now at well over 2000 and completely entrenched in lore.
Bartwe worked on the way NPCs/Monsters are spawned in procedurally generated dungeons.
Kyren has moved onto some of the leveling/scaling mechanics after finishing D3D support.
Omni has completed a pose system for player characters.
Today I also heard Malukahs first draft of her Starbound song. Its absolutely wonderful!
One of those posts where were all continuing with larger tasks today Im afraid.
I continue to finish up the description system. Im almost done now (I skipped sleep last night to do it).
Its adding so much life to the game, Im excited to have it finished.
Kyren continues to work on how planets change at different levels. This is a large task because it ties into almost every part of the game. The kind of drops you find, the ore distributions, monsters and so on.
Bartwe finished some new consumable functionality that allows us to finish up the rest of the food items.
Omni is finishing up the sleep system, hopefully that will be in place tomorrow.
George is working on finishing up the final dungeons.
Legris is tearing through the intro content.
Rho is working on various animation work thats needed finishing for a while.
Also Ive set up a Q&A thread on the forums. Take a look at that here:
Its been a tough/frustrating day in Chucklefish land.
My internet connection has been out most of the morning and Kyrens car broke down whilst she was on the freeway, causing her to spend pretty much the entire day fixing her car by the side of the road.
That said, the day wasnt a total wash.
Im still on those descriptions. Just half of Glitch and human left to go. Molly pointed out to me today that Starbound contains as much text as a novel. Which is pretty cool.
Bartwe completed a bunch of additions to consumables to give them additional configurable affects. Hes moving onto a system for applying one item to another. This will give us things like dyes and repairing items.
Omni is making a quick drawables change to enable us to do special things our sleep system.
Rho put most of the new furniture in the game.
George is completing the Hylotl dungeons (once hes finished the first one up, ill put up the Hylotl introduction post.)
Legris is still bumping the intro art along.
And heres a random screenshot because its been a little while since I posted one
Today weve mostly worked on little things. A few members of the team are working on a secret project for Starbound that the other members do not know about (a weekened thing we sometimes do for fun). Weve done eating animations and given consumables various visual properties. And there has been a lot of hard work done on the seemingly endless descriptions for the vast amount of objects in the game.
Weve also been working on a Hylotl village which has been a lot tougher than we originally thought. With a style based on Japanese architecture its very hard to mimic those kinds of curves, shapes and details into our tile system. But were still on it! Hopefully well have something to show there soon.
So today is a Sunday. Which means its our day off and of course we spend our day off working on Starbound!
During weekends we allow ourselves to work on things that arent part of the beta todo list. Its a good way of going fresh and motivated into a new week.
So, the secret feature Bartwe has been working on. What is it?
Its an entire in game music system!
Youll be able to craft musical instruments including a trumpet, violin, guitar, piano and drum. Once youve got one of these instruments youll be able to hit various keyboard keys to play different notes. But more interestingly the instruments are able to read abc notation. Which you can read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_notation
Essentially youll be able to share tunes with each other as regular text. Copy and paste them into your Starbound directory and your player will use his instrument to play the song in game. Youll be able to play songs in multiplayer and even synchronize different instruments with each other to form a band.
Heres a really early video of a song played on a trumpet. The animation isnt finished and looks a little bad. And the timing isnt quite right yet. But it gives you an idea!